Why Kenya Sevens team faces tall order in the World Rugby Sevens Series

The Kenya Sevens team is under pressure to make quick adjustments and seal gaps exposed in the season-opening Dubai Sevens played from November 30 to December 1.

The team flies out this weekend to South Africa for the December 7 to 8 Cape Town Sevens is under pressure to learn the ropes fast, given the dynamic World Rugby Sevens Series which is unforgiving, giving teams little time to atone for mistakes.

The team, christened ‘Shujaa’, is back to the World Sevens series after a year out. Kenya finished 10th out of 12 teams in Dubai Sevens, the opening leg of the 2024/2025 series on Sunday, after losing to Uruguay 15-7 in the final for ninth place.

Shujaa collected three points in Dubai and will be hoping for a better performance in Cape Town, where they face Spain, losing finalists from Dubai Sevens, and Australia in Pool ‘B’.

Cape Town Sevens will feature four pools of three teams each, with the group winners qualifying straight to the main Cup semi-finals.

This points to a more competitive series that also has fewer competitions and teams.

The focus now shifts to coach Kelvin Wambua as he tries to address the mistakes that might have cost the team an appearance in the Main Cup quarter-final in Dubai.

“Despite the ups and downs, we remain positive heading to Cape Town. It’s a favourable pool, and all these teams are beatable as the boys proved in Dubai,” the team’s manager, Steve Sewe, pointed out on Sunday.

“We just need to cut down on unforced errors to do well,” he pointed out.

This season, the World Sevens series will feature such closely-contested matches that are determined by small margins and players need to accurately read matches when thrown at the deep end.

Shujaa played well against Olympic champions France but a crucial missed conversion saw the game stay at 19-19 at full time, taking the game to golden points, where Ali Dabo touched down the winning try for France.

Kenya almost gave away the match against Olympic bronze medallists South Africa after coach Wambua’s team led 17-0 at the break but allowed Blitzbokke to score easy tries off careless mistakes at the breakdown. The team however held on to win 21-17.

Against Australia, Shujaa trailed Australia 17-7 at the break and were on course for victory but their hopes were dimmed when co-captain George Ooro was sin-binned for intentional trampling.

Australia piled pressure and won 31-14, extinguishing Shujaa’s hopes of a Cup quarter-final appearance.

Sewe singled out the missed conversion against France, and the sin-bin moment against Australia as the turning point.

“We have talked to the players on the importance of cashing in on every opportunity since the series has no time for recovery.”

Spain and Australia are Shujaa’s familiar foes, having played and lost to Spain 10-5 last in the promotion and relegation play-offs in May in Madrid. They lost to Australia 21-7at the Paris Olympics preliminary round and 31-14 at Dubai Sevens on Saturday.

Spain bludgeoned through to the final in Dubai before losing to Fiji 19-5 in the final while Asuralia finished sevens after beating Great Britain 17-12 in the play-off.

The dynamics at the World Series have changed, with events being reduced from 11 to seven and teams from 16 to 12.

The 2024/2025 series will feature seven events across seven months in seven avenues.

With Dubai gone, the series heads to Cape Town this weekend before moving to Perth-Australia, Vancouver-Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Los Angeles will host the Grand Finale (championship) featuring the top eight placed teams based on cumulative series points after six events in Singapore.

The winner will take it all.

Los Angeles will also play host to the high-stakes promotion and relegation play-off competition in which teams ranked from ninth place to 12th after Singapore Sevens will join the top four teams from the World Rugby Sevens Challenger, in a battle for places in the 2025/2026 series.