Kenya ladies rugby in valiant effort: More work needed

The Kenya women’s rugby sevens team recently participated in the Rugby world cup  qualifiers held in Morocco. They came within 4 points of qualifying : After winning all their games on the way to the final, they lost narrowly to Tunisia whom they had beaten a day earlier.

The scores for Kenya were as follows:
Kenya 36 Morocco 0
Kenya 36 Zambia 0
Kenya 7 Tunisia 5
Kenya 7 Senegal 0
Kenya 10 Tunisia 14

A creditable performance by a group of ladies who are fighting against steep odds. All of them have had to sacrifice their own time and money to represent the country. The game of women’s rugby in Kenya has not been given the attention it deserves and there There is a lot more that can be done by stakeholders especially the KRFU:

Broaden the team base.

There are hardly any women’s rugby teams in Kenya. As far as this write knows, there are only two teams that offer women’s rugby and Mwamba RFC is the only club in Kenya that has wholeheartedly supported women’s rugby thanks in large part to the work of current KRFU chairman Mwangi when he was Chairman of the club.

However there is no reason there cant be other teams. There are women at all of Kenya’s Universities who would gladly take up the sport. There ought to be women’s rugby teams at each of Kenya’s top public Universities, KU, UoN, JKUAT etc. Other clubs like Impala and Mombasa sports club should get into the 21st century and start sponsoring girls teams. At the very least they should have a sevens team.

A competitive league with more than the current 2 or 3 teams will motivate players to push themselves harder. It will also increase the number of players available for national team selection which can only be good for the national team.

Kenya needs a sevens circuit for women

If Uganda can have a sevens circuit for women, surely there is no reason why Kenya cannot. That the country needs more teams has already been covered in the paragraphs above. However in the current situation, teams like Mwamba can be divided into two teams and have an abbreviated sevens circuit with say 3 or 4 legs. This can be expanded in future years as more teams are registered.

Better player development

Its not an accident that Tunisia is now the top rugby playing country in Africa. This is a country that does a heck of a job in player development. Note that as of 2012, Tunisia is also the African champions in men’s basketball and is near the top in women’s basketball. Quite a feat for a country that was a nobody in that sport. Their rise to the top of women’s rugby is due to the same player development principles that have seen them rise to the top in sports like basketball, football and now rugby. Senegal is another country that is quickly rising in sports like basketball and rugby They recently won both the men and women’s Africa U-18 championships. And now that rugby 7s is part of the Olympics, they have set that as a target.

More rugby at school level

There have been some tentative steps taken to introduce the sport to children at an earlier age. However girls rugby is still not contested in the national secondary schools championships. Now that it is an Olympic sport, there really ought to be no reason why girls rugby cannot be contested at school level. Some of the girls who play hockey or basketball during term 1 will gladly take up rugby during term 2. The onus is on KRFU to help introduce the sport just as they did with rugby 7s for boys.

Introducing rugby at school level with broaden the player base thus increasing the amount of talent available for national team selection. If exposed to proper training, then the girls will master the basics skills of the game at an earlier age which is critical in order to produce higher calibre players. The standard of play in Kenya will therefore rise.

As things stand now, many of the girls playing rugby for Kenya today actually had never played the sport until they were 18 and had finished form 4. They are therefore competing against opponents from Tunisia and Senegal who have likely been playing the game for much longer and have thus mastered more of the basic fundamental skills.

Olympics in 2016

The Olympics coming up in 2016 is a glorious opportunity for the Kenya women’s rugby team to gain the attention of sponsors. We recently saw how the Kenya Prisons volleyball team landed a sponsorship after qualifying for the club world cup. Sponsors like to identify with winners.

However if countries like Tunisia and Senegal continue with their structured youth development and player development, Kenya will find that qualifying for the Olympics will be tall order if the current status quo continues.