TUM 15 - Malindi 7

Another great day for Malindi Rugby last Saturday, not so great for the Canadian National team!  We had another successful trip down to mombasa, this time to the beautiful TUM campus in Tudor.  A couple of the guys at TUM are ex-malindi guys, including the Captain (Enock, we call him Bogogno), so we felt very at home.  The pitch was less than desirable, with trees overhanging which would block many of the kicks and many stones on the ground.  We spent 30 mins pre game removing stones.

The game started with them kicking the ball to us, winning the ball by holding up our ball for a scrum, and then them proceeding to pound the ball in.  I was worried, but luckily we finished the half at 10-0.  Most of the first half they basically held our mall up and killed the ball, thus winning the scrum put in.  Was frustrating that our players didn't adapt to that right away, but lessons have been learnt in training this week.  Many of the senior players who didn't play at Malindi High had been trained to go into contact by hitting the defender with the ball so that they would bounce off!  Imagine, giving the ball straight to the defender!

At any rate, we played much better in the second half.  I missed a kick which was knocked on, there was a penalty on the ensuing scrum and Simba ran it in for a try.  He again was the MVP from our side, he had a couple of marvellous runs where he took on their whole team… his finishing was also better but he still needs to work on his kicking for goal and touch, although he gets a ridiculous amount of distance on his kicks!!  They scored another scrappy try, even though we were knocking on their door the whole second half, and the game ended 15-7.

I was extremely pleased, I believe TUM won the Coast Division of the same league last year, so was expecting to be destroyed.  And I do believe that the trip takes something out of us.  It's not exactly a comfy bus.  Perhaps we'll have to leave earlier in the future so the boys can rest.  Problem is, we haven't been receiving the travel subsidy (let alone I don't even know how much it will be) so can't afford to pay for lunch for the boys and the transport bill already is not that easy to make!  Hope the Union will come through, I know they are having a hard time, but most teams are not honouring their away games it seems…  A shame we haven't had a home game yet.

Karibuni Malindi High this week for Coast Raiders on Saturday at 3 pm!