President Uhuru Kenyatta motivated National Sevens team to win

Uhuru autographs the ball during the Rugby Sevens team’s flag presentation at State House, [PHOTO: PPS]

BY BS MULAVI

The Kenya National Sevens team is in a bullish mood as they leave the country for London for a training camp before they head to Moscow for the Sevens Rugby World Cup.

Speaking to Feverpitch before their departure, captain Andrew Amonde said the team had high hopes of performing well in the tournament.

 “We feel confident and I believe we have the potential to come back home with the trophy,” he said.

Amonde feels that  their solid performance in the just concluded International Rugby Board Sevens circuit will help them deliver an even better performance in the World Cup, where they came out fourth the last time they took part in the event.

“We played well in the circuit and its basically the same team that took part in the nine legs that will be taking playing in the World Cup,” he explained. “We should expect a solid performance from some of the players like Collins Injera and Willy Ambaka who have always come through for the country when called upon,” he added.

Amonde did not mince his words when he said they were aiming for the main trophy, even though they are wary of losing their heads while looking at the top games, “We want to win the  cup but we have to take one game at a time,” he said. “We now need to focus on the group games and then when we qualify for the Main Cup quarter-finals, we can start considering the main title.”

This will be the first time that Amonde will shepherd the side in the World Cup and the Kenya Commercial Bank veteran is looking forward to leading the team into the greatness. “It’s a great honour to be able to lead the boys out and it is my sincere hope that we can play as a unit and come home victorious.”

Amonde went on to rubbish any talk of distractions ahead of the tournament, “there have been some squabbles at the Kenya Rugby Union, but as players we do not involve ourselves in those,” he explained. “The set of players we have are very professional and I doubt that they can let anything like that get into their heads ahead of the games,” he said.

“All the players are fully focused at the task at hand and know what is at stake if we get distracted.”

The team will be in London with head coach Mike Friday to polish up ahead of the games, which kick off on June 28. The team finished the circuit with their highest ever tally and this has raised hopes of the rugby fraternity of the possibility of Kenya winning their first ever World Cup.