Chipu turn attention to World Rugby Under-20

Kenya shifts focus to the World Rugby Under-20 Trophy after successfully organising the Rugby Africa U20 Barthes Trophy which concluded at the Nyayo National Stadium at the weekend.

The 2019 and 2021 Barthes Trophy winners are planning to start early preparations for the global tournament which will run from July 15-30 at Nyayo National Stadium.

Chipu, as the Kenya under-20 men’s side is fondly known, has taken a two-week break after finishing second at the continental event.

Coach Curtis Olago’s charges lost 28-7 against Junior Sables of Zimbabwe in the final which attracted 4,800 spectators.

Chipu assistant coach Louis Kisia and team manager Peter Mutai told Nation Sport that they want to be better prepared when they meet regional champions Spain (Europe), Samoa (Oceania) and Hong Kong (Asia) in Pool “B”.

Kenya, who staged the 2009 Junior World Rugby Trophy at the RFUEA grounds and competed in the same tournament in 2019 in Brazil, qualified automatically for this year’s edition as hosts.

Pool “A” will bring together Scotland (relegated from the 2019 World Rugby U20 Championship), regional winners Uruguay (South America), Canada/USA (North America) and Zimbabwe (Africa).

“We had a very good tournament at the Barthes Trophy. Unfortunately, we lost to Zimbabwe in the final. Tough luck on our end, but it is a wake-up call for the technical bench and the boys to come better prepared to face the World Rugby Trophy,” noteed Chipu assistant coach Louis Kisia.

He said they are going back to the drawing board to unwrite the wrongs they did against Zimbabwe to ensure they succeed in the upcoming tournament.

“The wrongs we had are all down to conditioning. Zimbabwe were in camp for a year and trained in high performance centres. We don’t have a high performance centre, but we can use what we have. We can get to camp early and start preparations. If we get good preparations, then we will definitely have an easy tournament,” observed Kisia, who coaches Kenya Cup side Strathmore Leos.  

“Kudos to Kenyans who turned up in large numbers to support the boys at Nyayo despite the rain. They braved the rain and were here,” added Kisia.

He also appreciated the Sports Ministry through Principal Secretary Jonathan Mueke, SCabinet Secretary Ababu Namwamba, and Kenya Rugby Union led by Sasha Mutai for the support they gave to the boys to ensure they were comfortable and willing to compete.

Rugby Africa was also well represented at the tourney by Regional Development Officer John Bosco Muamba, who was the Tournament Director.

“Everything was in tandem. We had a quality pitch with a good playing surface and refereeing was top notch. Good job to Africa and moving forward as we continue to build ourselves as a rugby playing continent,” said Kisia.

Heading to the World Trophy, Kisia said definitely there is a lot of work to be done for Chipu.

“We need to be a bit stronger, better from what we gave out in the Barthes Trophy final. Zimbabwe is just a test of what we are going to experience and get to play during the global event because these are conditioned sides. They have been playing rugby for all these years. We need to better prepare ourselves,” added Kisia.

Kenya had captain Laban Kipsang and Gaylord Ngasi as their top try scorers, with two tries each at the Barthes Trophy. Patrick Wainana was Kenya’s top points’ scorer with 19 points.

Kenya plans to have friendlies probably with the back-to-back African champions Zimbabwe or Kenya Cup sides as part of their preparations.

Kenya defeated Uganda 44-20 and Namibia 24-13 in quarter-final and semi-final stages before being stopped by Zimbabwe who saw off Ivory Coast 55-0 and Tunisia 60-6 respectively in their run to the final.