Connect with us

General News

Kenya: Injera in as Odera Names 32-Man Simbas Travelling Squad for Currie Cup

Published

4 years ago

on

[ad_1]

Nairobi — Veteran Collins Injera has made the cut in head coach Paul Odera’s 32-man travelling squad for the Currie Cup in South Africa, but will join the team down South from May 1 due to work commitment.

The team has been training for the past month with the initial squad whittled down to 32. Five players who were part of the preliminary line up will miss the tournament due to various commitment.

Toby Francombe and Barry Robinson will miss the tourney due to school commitments while Malcolm Onsando, Michael Wanjala and Michael Kimwele will miss the trip to South Africa due to work commitments.

Odera has named three captains for the tournament; Darwin Mukidza of KCB, Impala’s Elkeans Musonye and Kabras Sugar’s Dan Sikuta.

“We just need to go test our structures and see how far we have come with what we have been doing for the past few months ahead of the Rugby World Cup qualifiers. This will offer as a good build up as a team and we hope for positive results and above all get to a good learning curve and we hope the end result will be Kenya qualifying for the Rugby World Cup in 2023,” co-captain Sikuta said as Odera named the team on Wednesday afternoon.

The team is scheduled to depart for South Africa on Thursday and is scheduled to stay there for close to two and a half months, with Odera saying it has taken huge sacrifice to have the team there owing to the amateur status of the Kenyan game.

The tactician says the end goal will definitely to put Kenya’s team in shape for the World Cup qualifiers which will be held in France in June.

“We might have the best players but if we don’t have the best team it is not going to be easy for us. We are going to try and develop as many players as possible so that by June 11 when we complete the Currie Cup, we will know our best team,” said coach Odera.

He added; “This is a big step for us to get to the World Cup and I assure all in the rugby fraternity that we will do our best to get us on that flight to France.”

The tactician has said making the decision to play in the Currie Cup was crucial for the Kenyan boys especially in giving them access to high performance training structures as well as difficult matches to prepare for the qualifiers.

He now is confident that he will have a good and competitive squad by the time they get back home from South Africa.

“This Currie Cup is a step in the direction towards us qualifying for the World Cup. We need competition that’s a lot harder than the opponents we will face in the qualifiers and South Africa will offer us that,” the coach said, as he thanked the Secretariat for making the trip possible.