Malindi High wins 2017 district Championship

I am very happy to be coaching Malindi High again.  We had a great tournament again this year, we played a round robin and won all of our games in the tournament.  We only conceded 6 points in 5 games which by any measure is always impressive, and while the team had huge depth issues at the start of the tournament, we managed to get good game time to a good 15 players who had never contested an official match before the tournament.

I particularly like this group.  They have a drive and desire to learn which I haven’t seen from previous teams.  They are probably the fittest any Malindi team has ever been at this point.  I hope they can continue to build on that. Usually, we crash and burn in the County tournament and we use that experience as a wake up call to get the boys fit for the 7s tournaments, and sometimes they respond sometimes they don’t. 

As mentioned before, we were particularly thin in experience this year.  As you may have heard, Malindi was one of the schools that suffered from school burning incidents last year, there appeared to be some kind of a trend throughout boarding schools in Kenya.  In Malindi they burnt the library.  To my knowledge, no rugby players were involved, but as a result of the subsequent school closure, many students, especially form 3s  (who would have been form 4s this year) were sent to other schools.  The result is that we only have 4 form fours in our squad this year and many of the players that had experience were not back and are going to schools that don’t have rugby.  An additional challenge is that the indiscipline at the school has given ammunition to the “rugby haters” amongst the teachers at the school, thus restricting our ability to have the necessary amount of time with the team.  There have also been a plethora of inspirational talks, meetings etc etc that cut into time previously allotted to games.

We have taken the lemons and made lemonade. We used the discipline issue to tighten the discipline within the team.  I came down hard on senior players involved in minor incidents or who were not coming for training.  One player, a potential star was cut completely from the team for missing practice without telling anyone.  We made a point of cutting out prima donnas and we have pushed extremely hard on the physical preparation and as a result we are probably better prepared than ever before and we probably set foundations for success in years to come.  I really want the rugby players to be leaders in the school, both academically and morally.  In the past, I had teachers laud the team and say that the players stopped indiscipline, ideally I would like that to continue!

Our team is Form 2 heavy and thus quite small.  So we kept it simple.  We got fit, and ensured that we protect the ball as a priority.  Also, as is the hallmark of our teams, we tackle like beasts!  It means we are quite one dimensional, but I’ll take it, and the results were there, although the score lines aren’t as good as I’d hoped.

Malind 6 – Barani 3

Barani played well, were the only opposition with any shape at all and posed a threat but the boys played there game and pulled it off.  We missed a number of kicks though which is a problem we may have solved. Coached well by Koki, a Malindi RFC fullback who schooled at Muyeye.

Malindi 27 – Gede 3

The guys got all excited as predicted and started running sideways to score tries.  2^nd half saw many under experienced players get a chance on the pitch.

Malindi 6 – Mida 0

I played essentially a second team to try people out, the team was a bit shaken, but they got it in the end.  Scoreline should have been much higher but lack of finishing, and the boys took a bruising because they took to Mida’s unpolished game and tried to challenge them at it.

Malindi 20 – Langobaya 0

Played the first team in the first half and then subbed as much as possible.  By now we had a number of key injuries to key players from all the banging against unskilled teams, so 2^nd string inventions at fullback, and throughout the backs and in the back row.  Paid off in experience for young guys.  Watch out next year!

Malindi 6 – Muyeye 0

We were bracing for a bruising in this one and we got it.  Muyeye is always a tough team and they were coached by one of the Malindi RFC guys Reagan who schooled there.  I played as much of a first team as I could given injuries to Fly half Chikoto and Fullback Jimmy J.  We basically smashed the ball down their throats and then they figured out that we were taking the ball on while standing still and they started catching us behind the gain line.  Lots to work on!

I’m looking forward to these counties, not quite sure what will happen, but I think we will be better prepared than we have been.  Sadly, we only have one week before the county tournament and it is the mid-term holiday week.  If the players turn up for training, we may have a chance, if not, likely we won’t win a game in the tournament, there is still a lot to work on.  Waweru, the coach of the team is extremely committed and looks hopeful that we may go far, so I still have hope.  Chibudu has been helping out putting in systems on defence and I hope that will continue as we prepare for the next tournament.  I would like the guys to improve a bit on their rush defence and jackaling as is the fashion these days. 

Odima, the Galana Coach refereed one of our games and later told me that if we played like that, our team would be smashed by his and Garashi.  He somehow has managed to send two teams from the Magarini district tournament, normally only one team is allowed per district.

I would like for the Union to arrange for warm up tournaments before.  There is zero investment in Under 18 rugby in the coast.  There are so many schools without teams, it would be so easy just to give each high school 5 balls and have someone visit them once a week for a month or something, and do the same in primary schools. Then you would have a lot of rugby players and later on rugby fans!  My two shillings!

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!

Malindi RFC Background

Malindi RFC Starting 15 at Friendly Match Ukunda Show Grounds Vs South Coast Pirates

Malindi RFC was put together in early 2013 in order to give school players who have graduated a chance to compete at the next level and to give the up and coming younger school players a chance to see more advanced rugby and provide them with older role models in an attempt to solidify the growth of a rugby culture in Malindi. It is coached by James Terjanian and Nicolas Waweru, with some assistance from Odima and support from Twaha and is lead by Captain Harold Simba and Anthony Kithi. 

The team consists of players mainly from Malindi High, Barani and Galana Secondary school with some participation from Muyeye.  Malindi High has represented the coast in the National KSSSA championships on 4 occasions in the last 5 years and is now gearing up to improve its record in those championships.

The team trains and plays at Malindi High School in Ngala estate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 4:30 PM and welcomes any Rugby player residing in Malindi or Magarini Districts.  We think that there might be rugby players form upcountry that would be interested in playing but might not know about us, so any publicity to that effect would be great.  

Malindi RFC does not have solid financial backing yet, but has received some financial support to attend the Diani Beach Rugby tournament in July from Amani Riviera, a group hoping to promote tourism on the Coast to non Italians the remaining funding comes from local rugby enthusiast James Terjanian and in kind contributions from Malindi High. Malindi RFC has a development plan it is seeking sponsors for which includes introducing touch rugby to primary schools, Improving secondary school participation in Rugby, the development of a Rugby Academy in Malindi and the participation of Malindi RFC in high level National Competitions. 

Malindi Rugby Development Plan

I have spoken earlier about the Malindi Rugby Development plan.  I have garnered interest from a couple of sponsors in Malindi, but the aim is to start small and get going.  Mine and Waweru’s goal (we welcome anyone who wants to help out!) is to have a team from Malindi win the nationals in the next ten years, and to have 3 players on the national 15s team in the next ten years!  The plan itself has been developed in much more detail with activities and budgets lined out. Happy to hear your comments!

The plan has four prongs which are the following:

Introduce touch rugby to the primary schools, sending ex high school players (club players) to primary schools and giving each school one ball, the player would lead them in "touch" training games to ensure exposure at an early age and ensure that we don't always have to start from scratch when they get to high school.

Increase the number of secondary schools playing rugby in Magarini and Malindi districts, currently there are 7 (two of the ones in Magarini are quite shaky), this would involve some basic training of coaches, a bit of supervision and provision of some equipment.

Development of a “Rugby Accademy” which is essentially a select side taken from the high schools playing rugby.  Any rugby player put forward by his (and yes eventually her) coach who has at least a B would qualify.  We would aim for 30 under 20 players and 30 under 17 players, put them up for a residential 3 week camp, bring in a forwards and a backs coach from up country and give them a 5k scholarship for that term.  The Accademy would take place in three separate sessions during the school holiday period (April, August and December. The two teams would then take part in at least one tour of a rugby playing area at the end of the academy period.

Development of a Rugby club with Senior and Junior Sides. As I mentioned, we have been working hard on this lately but the one stumbling block is the entry into high profile competitions and transport resources.  This year we are aiming to enter (if the KRU allows) the next Chairman's cup (Ezra from St Georges credits this and the transport facilitation for his success this year and urged us to look into it) and the Driftwood 7s and Prinsloo tournaments in the national 7s circuit which is very soon.  

Malindi High at the National Championships in Nakuru

Well, it's the same old story!  As good as it is for us to have the national exposure, we were crushed at the Nationals.  The first game against (granted Perennial National Favourites) Kakamega resulted in an almost incredible 60 - 0 score line, that's almost a try a minute pace...

The boys had been buoyed by their two wins last year against Alliance and Shimo la Tewa (I think in the shield) and had aimed to have at least two wins in the group to try to advance to the quarters. but this was not to be this year. That game took all of the steam out of the boys and the rest of the tournament proved tough to motivate them.  There has been a lot of talk about Kakamega fielding older players than regulations, I don't know if that is the case, but I hope someone looks into it.  In the mean time, it's just fuel for us to work harder! This again is the main thing we need to work on with them from now on, mental toughness. Other scores were a close 15-10 loss to Moi, 29-0 loss to Alliance and then a 7 - 0 loss to Kibiricho in the bowl.  St Georges beat St Mary's Yala and made it to the Quarters.  Good on them!  I suppose our goal next year has to be to beat Georges!!!

Seasons changing!

I just got back from another extended stay in Djibouti to do my usual stint, coaching the club for the rugby season with Waweru. Last summer I managed to train a bit with some of the boys in July in August while I was here, and it was great, but due to the teachers strike in September, our plan for a tournament up country was foiled!

This year presented us with a new major challenge.  It seems the Kenya secondary schools sports association (KSSSA) has decided to change the schedules around, moving 15s rugby to the first term and 7s to the second.  This poses three major problems for us.  

First of all, fifteens is quite a complex game, and this means that our district championships are this week, just over a month after the students report to school.  It really doesn't allow for us to prepare the boys technically sufficiently for the tournament.  I'm not sure how it works in other parts of the country, but at Malindi High, where the intake comes from mainly rural areas, some of the kids tend to report late. For one, the form ones only started reporting this week.  Uninformed rugby players are dangerous rugby players.  This increases the risk of injury.  On some level, having the 7s before the 15s championship worked because the rules are a lot simpler and you could get away with managing fewer players at the beginning and the others could catch up while watching the senior players play.  The situation has been made worse now by the addition of an extra tier to the championships.  I suppose as a result of the constitution, we now have to compete in the "County" Championships after winning (Munguakipenda) the districts, then we move to the provincials and the nationals.  In past years we tended to play the 7s districts in early - mid March and then played the provincials end of March. Now we are having to play our first and seminal 15s tournament in mid February!

Secondly and most importantly, the boys can not possibly be physically prepared for the games in time with this new schedule.  Rugby is a very physically demanding sport, and is physical preparation is vitally important, without sufficient preparation, you risk serious injury.  My biggest nightmare is not my team, which is made up of students that luckily I've had the honour of coaching over the last years and have had good habits instilled in them, but the other teams, who being slightly less organized, will probably have had a couple of weeks to bring the form fours up to speed.  Physically unprepared players are dangerous to themselves and to the opponents they face, and I am sincerely worried for my players this week.

Finally, I really don't understand the logic in  playing rugby during this time of year in Kenya!!  It is the hottest and driest, and the most likely to cause injury.  Rugby (except maybe in north america which has arguably the worst rugby in the world) is usually played during the coolest and wettest periods.  When you play in full summer, the quality of the pitch deteriorates (in this part of kenya it tends to be sand and thorns!), the risk of dehydration increases and the risk of serious injury, especially concussions is multiplied. For this reason alone, I would urge the KSSSA and anyone vaguely concerned for the well being of young rugby players in Kenya to push the 15s tournaments to May-June-July, the wettest and coolest months throughout Kenya.  Ideally, the Nationals could be played at the end of July, with the provincials mid July and the Districts and County tournaments being held in June.  This would give much more time for the players to prepare, and have them playing in the period when it is safest to play rugby.  High school rugby is already plagued in Kenya by lack of equipment, many teams we meet don't have proper equipment, regularly players play (as often documented in my blog) without boots, certainly without mouth guards (I don't believe I've ever seen one on the coast) and often with trees growing in the pitch and dangerous fences in the end zone. I see no need to further put players health at risk by having them play unprepared during the most physically challenging season.

I sincerely hope that we manage to change this, as I believe strongly as educators and coaches, that the students wellbeing should be our formost concern.  I would appreciate assistance in lobbying for this, so please contact me through the blog if you can assist!

Cheers,
j

Provincial runners -up for sevens!!!

Lots to tell! haven't updated this in a while, but not because of lack of activity.... I came back to Malindi in mid February and continued training with the team which actually didn't lose that many players, although three key leaders did graduate and a couple players transfered to other schools. As expected they were crushed at Nationals, but I think it was a great experience for the boys. I focussed a lot more on fitness this year, realizing that to compete at a higher level, especially with those huge teams from up country, will require a great deal of physical play. I also actively lobbied to have more kids allowed to train, we usually had around thirty, and I'm still not sure what the dynamics there... It should be the most popular sport at the school, it's the only one that allows boys to travel outside of the district and now we've been to the Nationals! At any rate, it's a work in progress!

We had long chats with the boys about our goals, and decided we wanted to get to the Nationals again and this time try to win at least one game! A tall order as the road to the Nationals is long, and there are a number of strong teams who want to get there as well... But I told the boys that I was confident that if they worked extremely hard that we could do it.

So I suppose around two weeks ago the boys competed in the district championships, and despite a disappointing 5-0 loss to arch rivals Barani in the first match, the boys played well and stuck to the game plan. There was a bit of collapse and deviation from our strategy against Barani, I've always tried to get them to be very conservative in the early phases, try to suck the other team in a bit and then try our luck out wide, but sometimes whenputunderpressure, the boys start throwing the ball around wildly. There is also this funny hegemony in kenyan coast rugby to "flow" the ball which I think is counter productive. I guess it's what other people might call "hands", but usually involves carelessly launching the ball away from attackers, and I try to discourage it as much as possible. The other thing that really gets on my nerves is the celebrating. We crushed a couple of teams, both physically and on the scoreboard, and I was really disappointed to see the boys' exaggerated celebrations, especially the long ones after the tournament which we didn't win but advanced as the second place team.

Actually there was quite a lot of disorganization at the tournament which was quite disappointing given that the ministry of education has officials whose only role practically is to organize these things. We were told for instance that the tournament would be on Wednesday, and it turned out to be on Thursday, the matches were supposed to start at 8 and they started at 10, one of the teams arrived really late, and one team just left the field after being consistently being beaten, which is why we ended up in second, if they had stayed we would have finished first as we soundly beat galana 21-0 who beat barani 14-0 if i remember correctly. Room for improvement, but the frustrating thing is it makes it difficult to prepare the boys, and get them used to planning things well... At this point we were not training for sevens, but as usual focussed on giving the boys the skills to play their smash-mouth rugby. We had another couple of weeks to prepare for the provincials, and once again focussed on physical conditioning. I tried to organize friendly games with barani, but they never showed. That's another small frustration,waweru seems to think that nobody wants to play exhibition games against us because we are the provincial champs and this would give us an advantage... Bullocks, coast rugby will go nowhere if the boys aren't constantly competing and being exposed to the game.

I'm still trying to raise some money for a trip up country to expose the boys to some seriously competitive teams, I only need 500 dollars more! I was really excited for the provincials, as things were coming together nicely, the boys seemed to have bought in to our system and were fully committing themselves to the taxing training sessions we were running. I had a couple of kids close to throwing up a couple of times, and as a result, for the first time, managed to get them to bring water to training sessions. I was also extremely excited to have a chance to get back to Taita, which I love! It is so nice and cool and green, and I had contacted Nina who hooked me up with the university of Helsinki guest house which has a Finnish sauna and a gorgeous view. I'd stayed there before, years ago when Nina and I travelled to wundanyi together and climbed the Yala. I drove down from Mombasa the morning before the games, just in time to coach the boys to a solid 15-5 victory over a strong St George's. They had beaten us in a sevens tournament earlier, and to be honest, they were the only team I was concerned about! We then went on to win our other two games, 34-0 against Kilifi Township and 37-7 against Baptist.

Pretty much everyone considered us to be strong favorites to win as a result. We were hitting the other teams hard, and then killing them with our speed around the corner, especially from Duko, Kitti and Ndumbo. We had some bad luck, as our most reliable player, ball winner and tackler, Chaka was injured early in the second half of our first game, but we more than compensated with our strong bench, and despite loosing another key player "Biggie" at the start of the next game, and our bench being shortened to three, we still dominated. Chaka was obviously devastated, but with a dislocated shoulder, I tried to convince everyone that it would be better if he healed properly and was available for 15s. We had a quite exiting and tense quarter final against Mavuno which we won with a last second drop goal from Duko basically they were the first team that handled our speed and tackled well, they forced our team to work for what they got and didn't give us any freebies. I think our boys have gotten used to poor opposition and using their speed and strength to either break tackles or run around people, so I'm always happy when someone challenges us and forces us to play better rugby. That set up a semi final against our district rivals barani, who had been having a marvelous tournament including a scalping of last year's sevens champions Hindi in their first game.

We were the most nervous for this game, and resisted the temptation to play Chaka, but I pushed the boys to play our hard pounding game, and we did, and came away with a solid 14-0 win! we were so elated as it meant our ticket to the national championships in kisumu was assured. Problem was that our captain, Zeinya, finished with a horrible shoulder injury on a try saving tackle which left him writhing and howling in pain, so we decided once again to not take any risks, leave our injured players off (all three were eager to play in the final) and give some experience to the young boys. Well, they got it! A big, tough Shimo la Tewa team thrashed us, it was 15-0 before Duko made one of his great grubber aided runs fora try to bring it to 15-5 at the half, and I think it ended 35-5. The boys were devastated, but I was happy as ever, we had an incredible tournament and were off to the nationals for the second time in two years, once for fifteens, and once for sevens, accomplishing our goal once again! Now it's back to the training ground. Duko had a pretty bad bang to the head in the second half of the final, so he'll need to stay away from training for a while, but I've asked waweru to push the boys hard till they can't move anymore, hopefully, a couple of other friends who have expressed interest in helping out, Josh and Alex will come and help out.

We keep building, so I'm doing everything I can to move this thing forward now and keep the momentum we've created.  The focus now is on training the younger boys, and seeking strong oposition to play against regularly.  Watch this space!!! :)

WE WON THE PROVINCIALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't tell you how excited I am! The boys trained very hard and persevered! Months of hard work paid off in adverse conditions! Won all of the group games 8-0 against Lamu's Hindi, 54-0 nail biter against Kikoneni, 8-5 against Mwavumo and the climax, 0-0 tie against Shimo la Tewa, a team we lost to (barely) in our first tournament of the season... then a huge 6-3 win against St Georges (one of the teams to beat that beat us in sevens) and then 5-0 win in the final against the reigning champions Waa!!!!! I honestly still can't believe that we made it!

It was the goal we set for ourselves at the beginning of the season... to make it to the nationals. And after a lot of hard work, literally blood sweat and tears, we made it! Thanks to everyone that supported us! Now this weekend the boys are in Meru for the National Championships where they are sure to get creamed, but hopefully this will be a learning experience. Normally, the Coast representatives at the Nationals loose by at least 60 point margins. Up country teams have rugby cultures, all the equipment, and the ones that make it to the nationals actually recruit for rugby players, handing out scholarships etc to physically gifted and talented athletes at nationally renowned schools. Tough for us to compete against, but we'll try! But hopefully we can keep that margin down and use this as a stepping stone for next year, and see if next year we can make it again and maybe even win a game!

Thanks again for all of your support!

New boots, new outlook!

I know it must be getting tedious, but I managed to figure out the sizes we need and got 7 sets of new boots for the boys yesterday. It was exciting to have most of the boys in the scrimmage actually wearing decent kit! Thanks to Tara and Wild Fitness! I think everyone feels a bit more prepared for the districts on Monday.

Another nice thing is that everyone seems healed up and rested and ready to push for the tournament on Monday. It's great to be able to have options for the first team, as I wrote earlier, in the last tournament my selection was limited by injury. I think the new boots will help with this too. I've been pushing the boys pretty hard in practice with respect to fitness, and we've worked on being more deliberate about how we move the ball inside and out. I also joined in a few times to challenge the first team, it's been really fun to get in there and get my hands dirty. Feeling pretty fit these days!

A nice surprise is that I see a lot of the second team players stepping up and challenging the first team in the games I have them play against each other. I think selection will become a lot more difficult! Lots of little things have improved as well, kicking, set plays such as lineouts and scrums. I really hope we can put it all together for next monday.

Another nice piece of news is that Reuters apparently has commissioned a feature piece on the team, so we will have another camera crew at the tournament on Monday and a professional photographer... hard work is paying off! :)

Lots of news! Wild fitness and Barani tournament

Right, well have been quite busy over the last week, helping with organising the music festival, rugby and figuring out what to do next! Lots of news since the last post. First off, we managed to get some support from Wild Fitness from Watamu who managed to drum up 10 000 ksh in sponsorship which we were going to use for balls, but in the end decided on, yes, you guessed it! BOOTS! That will buy us a bit more than three pairs, which might mean we won't have anyone playing in socks at the district championships! Thanks Tara!!!

Secondly, we participated as expected in the Barani Tournament, we had quite a few injuries so had to play some of the smaller and less experienced players. The skill level was significantly lower than Shanzu and the pitch was tiny, with 2 metre try zones with casuarina trees growing in them! A major bonus was being introduced to Twaha who is the rugby development official for the coast. Hope if things get rolling that we can work on something together to get rugby properly up and running in Malindi. He seemed like a great guy with a good knowledge and love for the game!

We had a tough first game against a much bigger and very low skilled Muyeye side. All accounts a very rough/dirty game which we came away with a 5-0 win, but injuries to our top three players. The next game was the worst I've seen our boys play, a 15-0 loss to Barani. Lots of panicking and turn overs galore, I was surprised and thought we'd taken a few steps back from the level we were at in Shanzu where we were destroying the cream of the crop. I think that the team got away from our strength (protecting the ball) in search of more space and creativity, but I guess it was a bit too creative. The last game against St Georges who we expected to be our biggest challenge was more of the same. Granted we only had 4 sets of boots on the pitch and lots of injuries, but again lots of turn overs and a 15-0 loss.

Not what I was expecting but I suppose it's better to get the kinks out here than at the districts or provincials. Back to the drawing board. Going to work on fitness and ball control this week. The boys were off for mid-term holidays, so a well deserved week off. Next week is the districts so we have our work cut out for us. Hope it will go well! Looking forward to getting some comments! Cheers, J

Preparation for Malindi Tournament!

So another tournament this weekend, mostly against district competition, but will be a good test for the lessons we learnt last weekend. Hope some of the bigger teams from Mombasa also come down, but we'll have to see. I'll be happy if our second team wins some games. Spoke to some friends here and abroad about sponsoring the team so hope that maybe results for this tournament will pay off! See you all there?

The boys watch Rugby on TV for the first time!

This might have been one of the best things to have done with the team, and I wish I'd done it sooner... although I suppose the six nations tournament just started. We took them to a restaurant, begged and pleaded with the owner, bought a soda for each of them (they had to walk home for an hour afterwards!) and watched France squeak by Ireland in a magnificent six nations match. In training today I could see that some of the boys better understood some of the concepts I was trying to bring to the team. Also good for moral and chemistry building. It's a shame it's so difficult in this day and age to have boys watch rugby on tv. But the fact of the matter is, it's not a popular sport here and it's not easy to bring 20 boys (or more preferably) into a safe place to watch the match. Couldn't invite them to someone's house and as you could imagine, the school was not so happy about the idea of bringing them to a bar. I'll have to figure out a better and cheaper way! By the way, for those of you not in kenya, schools don't have TVs! :)

Shanzu Tournament, our first Test... 3rd place!

Well, all in all we had a great tournament. Wasn't sure how it was going to go at the beginning, I really hadn't prepared the team to play sevens but hadspent most of our time working on the basics. Only found out about the tournament on wednesday so spent three sessions working on basic things like sevens scrums and line outs (I think we probably won around 20 percent of those in the tournament!) and as we only had a couple of players from last year, it really hurt us!

But the surprise was great, we wen't 4-0 on the first day of the round robin with big wins against Mariakani, Kwale and Hamisi, also sheepishly beating our B-side which is an other topic to discuss here! The next day I think we were unfairly punished by the referee and lost on a penalty try 7-5 to Shimo la Tewa, the other unbeaten team at the tournament on their home ground. This set us up with a semi-final berth against Mariakani whom we destroyed the previous day, but again (and I suppose you only say this when you lose!) we had a few calls go the wrong way and we lost 5-0. For a moment there I thought we were the class of the tournament and that we were going home with the trophy. In the end we finished third, which in my mind was a huge accomplishment given my expectations at the beginning of the tournament.

Conditions were less than perfect.

It was very difficult to get the boys water or food, and of course the school is on a very tight

budget. I guess traditionally the players here don't eat anything after breakfast so on the first day they didn't eat anything at all until after all the games were finished which meant around 4:30 pm. On the second day I convinced our other coach Waweru to spring for some bananas which the boys ate after the first match. Also equipment was a HUGE issue. There were around 5 pairs of functioning boots on our whole squad. In fact our players borrowed boots from t

he other teams which meant less than perfect conditions for warming up as they had to wait for the ongoing games to finish before they could get their gear on. This is something that I'd like to remedy! Anyone out there have boots?

The second team was another adventure. I figured since we could bring down 20 players we might as well give the younger kids a chance to play. On some levels this back fired, I think this had to do with the culture on the team. I guess the younger guys on some level didn't feel prepared, on an other were just happy to come along for the ride. Many of them after the first game (they were thrashed!) said they might sit the next game out and play in the third game. I've never come across this in all my years of coaching. But give them credit, after they saw the first team pushing hard, some of them rallied and played hard, doing better in their later games. We had a big prop out there with them, and he played the final game with only socks on his feet! Imagine playing sevens in socks on an african pitch!

All in all a smashing success for the first tournament! The first team really gelled and the second team came up with an identity, and today at practice (it was optional and non contact) I could see that they had taken a lot from their experience. We even stopped on the way home and watched the marvellous 6 nations clash between Ireland and France! There's another tournament here in Malindi this weekend. I think St Georges is coming down along with local Galana and the hosts Barani. I was hoping we would meet the perennial champions Waa this weekend, but apparently the school closed down due to riots, as did all the extra curricular activities, I'm trying to see if they might come up to play us in this tournament. Onwards and upwards! I didn't manage to get many pictures of game action as I was a bit excited, but here's a little crappy video of the big game against fellow undefeated team Tewa...

Game action! Preparation for Tourney this W/E

Got some great news at training yesterday. Apparently we've been invited to a tournament at Shanzu this weekend where the best teams on the coast will be competing. It's a bit early days and haven't gotten through everything I've wanted to skills wise with this team, and haven't had a game yet with this new group. But the exposure to game conditions will be great! It's a sevens tournament though and have been preparing more for fifteens. Am curious to see what the refereeing will be like and not sure how to prepare the boys for different interpretation of rules, how much flexibility they have handling the ball on the deck, how lineouts and scrums are judged etc... We had a bit of an issue this week as kids were sent home for their school fees, so training cancelled on monday and yesterday only had around 20 boys, some of them the new form ones (we have a new nice big prop by the way! :) ). But all in all excited about testing the team and getting some action in. Great passing from the tackle drill yesterday with a lot of fluidity but a bit concerned about the hand speed down the line. Tackles are great though, lots of bravery and intensity. The irony is that they love tackling but not so much being tackled! Would love to hear ideas.

Had another great training session today. Have been able to use last year as an indication of how fast/slow to go and what to expect. The boys are learning very quickly... today we worked on tackling and the boys are tough. Just need to get them some proper boots, it's really tough to push them to run hard or make cuts when they're running in flip flops! Note the american footballs we use to train... anything goes!