I've been meaning to get back to this blog, it has been a while and lots of things have developed in the last few years.
1) Malindi RFC bloomed and then crashed very quickly. Sadly, covid predictably killed rugby at the coast, and deprived the club of its main pitch at Malindi high. Long story short, the club was offered a pitch at the golf club, started attracting sponsorship from the malindi expat community and others including the golf club, some great work from Tropical/Dream of Africa/Sandies, the Driftwood members and then the fishing club members and I believe that all the Malindi RFC players got free fishing club memberships. Was all great, however I think sadly the classic thing happened. Money killed the club. It wasn't mature enough to manage it, lots of questions were asked as to who was making decisions and how accountable they were, this created mistrust and eventually the club crashed. I tried to stay out of it as I could see this coming and when I intervened at the beginning I was accused of being a stick in the mud and of being too negative. I was literally shouted out of a meeting at one point. This year I don't think they even entered any league or tournament... I think there might have been a friendly or two over the summer when Simba came back and mobilised some guys but that's it.
We had some talks amongst some of the more serious guys, and our goal now is to revive it but lower expectations. Malindi cannot have a club where players have expectations of having all of their costs covered, let alone getting paid. So we need to go back to everyone chips in and we are grateful for what we have. Pole pole ndio mwendo.
2) Rebirth of Malindi High Rugby. I, like everyone else, was stuck during Covid. And... I like everyone else tried to make lemonade from the lemons we were all dealt. One of the great things that came out of this was that I managed to reconnect with Malindi high, and I managed to train almost every day with form ones and twos at the time, making sure they have the basics as always.
As time passed, I managed to talk the Kithi brothers into coaching the team, and they have successfully. It's great because they bring the old boys' spirit, even some of the systems we had put in years ago with Waweru, and the team is just humming. Those form 1s and 2s are now form 3s and 4s, so needless to say they are smashing teams. It's great.
They are doing an amazing job with Lumumba and it looks like the new Headmaster is much more supportive of rugby than in the previous last few years although we are having a little trouble getting him to help us organise friendlies or participate in tournaments.
Sadly they lost in the County finals for 15s, but that is the best run in a while. They are currently in the sevens season and they are on fire. They left a wake of destruction in the sub-counties, beating most teams by 30 points including in the final and only having been scored on in one game.
They are currently in the County Championships, and facing the new nemesis Garashi in the Semis (if they make it!) if they can get past the quarters. Today they played some magical attacking rugby, literally tearing teams apart with speed and good ball handling. It was exciting to watch and it felt like the old days. I'm excited because if they go through I might be able to see them play in the regionals and god forbid, the tournament after that, which is their stated goal. I think they can make it if they stay focused... but this is always the biggest challenge at this levels. The boys get to these tournaments which are like parties and there are lots of temptations... but lets hope!
Video of the first try against Mwareni! The scores of the first two games were 37 and 27 nil!
3) Kyadonodo Rugby! In Kampala I started training a group of young underprivileged boys every Saturday. I did it for about a year and started to push for games for the boys to play. We managed to take them to play a team in Jinja and then the club leadership approached me and told me that they would like me to prepare them for the DBA cup, a U15 tournament in Nairobi that features Regional representational sides from all the main rugby regions of Kenya plus a Kampala team.
It's been fun, I guess everyone that reads these blogs know how much I love coaching kids. The club is great but my one frustration is that I only get them for a day (actually we started training both Saturdays and Sundays as we got closer to the tournament in mid May). But I would really like to help organise a feeder system where high school teams feed into the club "academy" so that we don't have to work on basics all the time. Most of the boys have not played a real rugby match with uniforms and a ref, or at least not a 15s one, so it has been challenging but rewarding. I was even lucky enough to get Chibudu up for a weekend from Kigali to help put in some defensive systems. Cheers Chibudu!
Anyway, hopefully I will find the time to write some more about these great developments. Thanks as always for reading, sharing and commenting on this Blog. I love feedback and new contacts etc. Always trying to make rugby stronger in East Africa! Kenya and Uganda should definitely be in the top 15 in the world rankings for 15s!!!!!!!!
Amen :)
