South Coast Pirates Game and Walkovers

Rubber Match with South Coast Pirates

Malindi RFC is now preparing for our great friends, and I dare say sister-team on the Coast, South Coast Pirates (SCP).  We will be playing them on Saturday at 4 pm.  I’ve been arranging for accommodation for the team as they will stay the night, quite a nice proposition as it means we can finally have a post game event after the match! 

As those fans who have been following know, we’ve played South Coast twice this year in Nationwide League build up friendlies.  The first Match South Coast won in Ukunda 30 – 19.  I believe that was the first match either team had, and South Coast had some players from Spartans which really gave them some experience.  Our boys were much younger and smaller and probably tired from the trip down, but we loved it!  The second match was much better for us and we won with a 22-13 scoreline.  South Coast was significantly stronger, although they did have at least one Spartan’s player on their team (maybe more I don’t know).  I’ve written about  Kadenge, he’s one of the best players in the league I’ve seen so far, and I have a lot of respect for him, I can’t begrudge his participation, but hopefully he won’t be there this week!

So Saturday is the Rubber match, and this time it is for League points, not just bragging rights, although there will be bragging rights in abundance!  From what I’ve seen, there are four solid teams in this year’s league.  We have played two of them, Spartans and last year’s champs TUM.  Add to that Masaku and Athi River (who in my mind should be playing in the Central Region) and you have the top four teams.  Voi is also strong but has not been honouring their games (we allowed them to try and reschedule but I fear even this will be a walkover!) and this means that we are playing for at least the fifth spot in the league despite being first year teams. Currently SCP is in fourth and we are in Sixth, but if we are awarded the two walkovers deserved for the two games we have not played yet, we would be in third… so it could be said that this game is for third place in the league!

This is the part of the blog where I put my head down and drive into the big guys!

Too Many Walkovers

This brings me to another point, this league has now had a number of walkovers.  Part of the problem is that some of the teams are not organized, many teams it seems have formed just to benefit from the KRU’s travel subsidy for the Nationwide league.  Other teams are school teams and were not available to play for the last two-three weeks (see our missed games with Voi and Pwani) and probably knew that before the season started. Malindi RFC for one, has not played a match in the last four game days, two home and two away.  This has really lowered the morale of the squad, it is pretty self-evident that players are less likely to train if they know that they won't be playing.

Changes in Scheduling process

I think that most of these no-games could have been avoided if First off, the KRU had engaged in a more participatory approach to scheduling.  I would have proposed for instance that the league start earlier which would bring many benefits. 

1. The weather is better for playing rugby.  The later in the year you get (and into the new year) the more likely you are to encounter hot dry conditions and cement hard pitches and therefore increased likelihood of injuries. In September/October, the pitches are soft and wet and benefit from the short rains and the residual of the long rains in much of the country.  I’ve also lobbied to have the school rugby season pushed back to May-June-July for this very reason.
2. December/January is traditionally a holiday month with lots of movement, people travel to their home places and are more likely to get seasonal jobs elsewhere.  Also, as mentioned earlier, November/December are exam periods for most of the students (school students leave on holiday end November/December) and it is no secret that many of the teams in the Nationwide league depend in large-part on Student players.  This is positive as it means that we will have players in the future, if we manage to get them to play regularly.

I think for those two main reasons, the league would do well to move next year’s nation wide league up a bit.  I understand that this conflicts with the Sevens season, but perhaps that could benefit from being pushed up into July (also wet and cool) and at any rate, most Nationwide league players do not participate in the Seven’s Circuit which mostly includes Kenya Cup teams. At any rate, participatory planning could have avoided many of these issues as many teams were scheduled games in periods when they already knew when the season started that they would not be able to honour them.  We rescheduled our second and third games, our third and fourth I would have liked to reschedule but how can I reschedule one month’s-worth of matches?   NB. The rescheduled matches have yet to be actually rescheduled to any given date!!!!

Travel Subsidy

The travel subsidy is a contentious issue.  Two of our games were cancelled by the other team's coach because they "didn't receive the subsidy". In some way it seems like it is the elephant in the room that nobody would like to talk about.  Up to this point (and believe me I’ve done my best to find out) I have yet to understand how much is meant to be allocated to any given team, what the allocation is for exactly, how the amounts are calculated and where the money comes from.  I presume it comes from the Union’s general budget fed financially through some sort of sponsorship deals.

Subsidy a Great Investment

Now don’t get me wrong, I think that the Subsidy is essential.  Unfortunately, especially here on the coast, the rugby constituency is far from vibrant.  It is made up of a relatively few, committed players mostly lead by ex-players from up country.  If teams are to get any kind of competition, they need to travel, and traveling costs money, although if planned properly it doesn’t need to be that much. The subsidy is thus very important in growing the game here on the coast as it will allow for players to be exposed to more game time. Also, as with any sport, travel is a great incentive to young players to improve… it's almost like a special bonus for gifted players. Unfortunately, the way the schools system works, the average player plays probably 4 days of rugby a year.  One of the reasons why Malindi High dominates the Coast Region is because their success in tournaments exposes them to 16 days of rugby a year (not including training of course). So the Subsidy should ensure that many more players play more quality rugby with quality refereeing and will exponentially increase incentives for players to invest in their own development.

Transparency

The problem in my view is transparency.  I can only hope that the KRU has solid plans and budgets for this money.  I respect the officials that I deal with, but I can only ask myself questions about the integrity of these plans/budgets because despite many queries, I have never received an answer to the questions I posed above (are they secret?).  Further, I received a text from the KRU last week (to my delight) that they were sending us some money.  Again, I asked how they arrived at the sum, only so that I may plan my budgets better for the future, and I still have not received an official response.  Now, let me make it clear, I don’t want to criticize and point fingers and my aims are in no way political.  I think that readers of this Blog understand to what level I am committed to growing rugby selflessly on the coast.  But I must say that this lack of transparency is killing Coast rugby.  My queries are almost always met with “it is only a subsidy and not meant to be the whole funding of the team”.  Fine, I get it, but what is the plan? At the beginning of the season, team managers I called often said that they would not be able to play because the Union had not sent the subsidy…. 

I think that if these two issues were addressed openly, the Nationwide league would be much more successful in having more rugby played on the coast.  To be honest, the number of Walkovers and lack of games has certainly diminished the enthusiasm of our team here, and certainly made it difficult to raise support from potential donors.  It also makes it difficult to get fans to the pitch when you cannot promote a game and be sure the other team will arrive.  On most occasions, it was not confirmed that the game was cancelled until the day before.

I sincerely hope that the Kenya Rugby Union will address these issues and I pledge my full support in everyway to better the way Rugby is administered on the coast.  Cheers!

Ps:  I hope David Nolan doesn't wimp out and actually plays against us this time around!!!  (even if he is just an outside centre!) :) Karibuni!!!!!!!

Great Day! Under 19 National Selection Camp Participation - Thanks to Driftwood Beach Club!

Today was probably the best day yet for Malindi Rugby.  I know I’ve been saying this quite a bit lately, but I suppose this is a sign that things have been progressing at light speed for us over the last year!

Today, five of our home grown players, Athman Abud, Tyson Kiema, Taura Emanuel, Kelvin Kithi, and Ian Nyanje were in Nairobi competing with the best Under 19 age group players in the country for spots on Kenya’s National team.  Many thanks to Roger Sylvester and the Driftwood Club in Malindi who backed the boys financially and made the trip possible.  The Driftwood is one of the most beautiful spots on Malindi’s Silversands beach and incidentally, the best and only place you can watch rugby on a big screen with Malindi’s rugger crowd.

The boys apparently did well, although they said that (as expected) the Kakamega guys were physically superior, but they felt like they kept up.  They also said that the Kakamega guys knew all the coaches, and that’s precisely why I was happy they went, our Malindi guys need to be part of the system/community and need to start networking and knowing the right people.  I think knowing people and knowing what to expect can boost performance at that type of a selection camp. 

At any rate, the thing apparently was a bit of a mess at the beginning, lots of guys didn’t have original birth certificates but photocopies (as is the custom here).  I simply told the guys to ensure they had their birth certificates (I didn’t apparently use the word ‘original’ which is key here) and so they brought photocopies.  At first they were turned away but luckily common sense prevailed and they were allowed to have a run around with the rest.  Thanks for your understanding KRU!

I’m told it was mostly fitness testing with a bit of position specific testing, but no contact or scrimmaging/gameplay simulation apart from scrumaging for forwards.  I already wrote to my contacts at the Union to ask them to give us a bit more advanced notice next time.  I could have prepared our guys quite well, to be honest, the guys that went weren’t that fit, but luckily they were playing on and off with the Club against big guys, so they weren’t completely out of it.  But had I known, I would have had them training hard! 

I hope that some of them get called back, realistically, I think it’s unlikely that one of them makes the team.  But as I said earlier, just their presence is a learning experience and three of them will have a chance to go back again better prepared next year, and hopefully they will tell their teammates about it and that will motivate them to be better players. On the other hand, I think there could be a chance that a)The selectors might want to diversify the national team away from just Luyas and Nairobi players.  I saw a tweet saying that they look forward to the day when an Abdi gets on the Kenya team… I replied that there was a guy called Athman Abud trying out for the Under 19 team and he is 210 kilos and can run enough to play 7s in the nation; and b) that they might look at some of our younger guys in view of grooming them for next year, perhaps with some of point ‘a’ in mind; And c) that the sheer size of a couple of the players (Athman ‘Biggie’ Abud and Ian Nyanje are freakishly wide!)  might make them attractive!

Well, anyway, as mentioned at the start, I’m EXTREMELY PLEASED!!!  Also, can’t wait for the next twist in the road/development for Malindi Rugby.  If we can start having an impact on Kenyan Rugby, I’ll be pleased.  I think all of us need to push in the same direction to make sure Kenya Rugby grows in a “resilient” and “sustainable” way.  In a way, Kenya Rugby could be looked at as a litmus test for what the country is going through… Corruption? Destructive Politics? Cronyism? Mismanagement… I think both Kenya and the KRU can rise above all of that stuff genuinely if every one of us believes that it is possible and we all roll up our sleeves and work.  Karibuni to the winning team boys and girls! :) (Ps: sorry for being so cheesy, my mum and dad showed up for a visit today and we’re all feeling good after a great day!)

PPS: The following are bios of Malindi Players I sent to the KRU, in actuall fact, Alphan, Alex and Duncan were too old to attend the camp: 

Tyson Kiema:  Played in two 7s KSSSA National championships, Has been training/playing with Malindi High for 4 years now, generally played on the wing when he was young but graduated as the first choice fly half this year until I found how well duncan kicks.  Kiema is by far my first choice Scrum Half at the club level and has been performing marvellously.  He is extremely fit and fast, his major strength is his passing accuracy and his understanding of the game, what to do at the breakdown and basic strategy.  He's also a clever bugger, one of the top students at Malindi High which is a provincial school.

Kelvin Kithi: Also played in two 7s KSSSA National championships. Has been training/playing with Malindi high for 3 years (he is a form 3).  His two older brothers also played at Malindi High on Provincial Champion 15s and 7s teams and both play for Malindi RFC at present.  He's lanky and fast, has been playing in the second row because of his size and toughness (I don't have many big guys here!), but aspires to play back row and might this year although would be an extremely good back at any position (especially outside centre I reckon). Decent rugby knowledge, and willing to listen and learn.

Athman Abud: Played in three KSSSA NAtional Championships (two 7s and one 15s).  Has played for three years at Malindi High always on the first team by nature of his size, at 110 kilos probably the biggest coastarian in school rugby.  He plays both prop positions well, but can move enough to play on my sevens team.  Strong tackler and decent ball carrier and passer (although I'd like him to pass less!).  Built to last.

Taura Emanuel:  I think only played this year, is a form three, but made it on the first team as a flanker this year and will probably be captain next year.  Bright, sharp, hard, strong, fast, loyal, excellent tackler, perhaps my favourite player at the moment.  Played back row at school but I have tried him at scrum half for Malindi RFC when Kiema wasn't available and he did extremely well.  He could probably play anywhere on the pitch, he's hard an you'll love his tackling and bravery.  The kind of player that can carry a team on his shoulders.

Alphan Mwinyikombo: Big fellow and team leader.  Extremely fit, good tackler and quite big.  Took over some games.  Perhaps not the sharpest tool in my tool box but he makes up for it in pure effort and strength and is always on any team of mine if he is fit which is almost always.  Also a good guy for rallying the troops, often speaks up for the team.  He also could do well in the backs and has an unbelievable distance on his kicks, great drop kick as well as place kick for goal!

Alex Karissa (Gaza):  Another team leader, transferred to the school this year after learning the game in fertile rugby breeding ground of Taita. Put him at flanker as he has the highest fitness levels but prefers to play in the backs.  Quite lanky, very fast and quick, magnificent 7s player but not as disciplined as I'd like in 15s as he makes up his own script often as he goes along, often with great results (Quade Cooper style).  Also a team leader, very Charismatic, I think his mum is on the county government… A big reason for our success this year.

Ian Nyanje:  Another fellow who has a great frame for rugby.  His fitness is not what I'd like it to be but he makes up for it with his size and body awareness.  He is an excellent ball carrier and adds a great deal of mass to the pack.  He's a form two, so lots of room to grow, still lots of maturing to do.  He was the other first choice prop on the 15s team but did not make the team consistently playing sevens because of speed/fitness issues.

Duncan Maghanga: Was a winger at the start of the season and then when I realized how well he kicked, moved him to fly half. His kicks for touch were pure magic, and he is accurate when going for goal from distance.  He is also pretty good at organizing the backs although his game knowledge is not magnificent as he only joined us I think consistently at the beginning of this year.  He was a leader of the 7s team that went to nationals this year, but hasn't been training with the team recently.  Also one of the lead academic performers at the school (which is why I don't fault him for missing training), which is his reason for not participating in Malindi RFC matches this year.

Please contact me if you'd like any further info.  I think we're sorted, but would love it if the boys could be billeted with nairobi based players… Otherwise do you have any suggestions for cheap (circa 500 ksh) accommodation near the pitch? As suggested I gave them Wasike's number, but I do have an assistant coach up there collecting them from the bus and bringing them to the accommodation. In the future, it would be great to know about this type of selection camp ahead of time, I would have pushed the players more physically and picked on them to perform at a higher level.  I sort of took the foot off the accelerator recently in view of having them concentrate more on their exams, I would say that most of them are at about 70% of their normal fitness levels, although that's already pretty good.

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!

Video: Simba makes a good break!

Here's the link!

Malindi RFC Youtube site link to Simba runs

This one is of Simba making a good break, but unfortunately loosing the ball after a lot of hard work… we're constantly working on this!

Spartans 25 - Malindi RFC 6

I feel like we’ve passed possibly the most important threshold! It’s been a great week for Malindi Rugby.  As most of you already know, we had our first ever Nationwide league match against Spartans in Mombasa, many long stories that I’ll tell later.  The important bit is that we managed to have our first league match! I feel like now, the rest is gravy, as being in the league gives Malindi Rugby most of what it needs to grow.  A game every week against decent competition will do wonders for rugby and create the incentive needed for the young guys to keep pushing and improving.

Starting fifteen at Spartans: Top: Biggie, Ibrahim, Kubamba, Teddy, Jemusi, Simba, Taura, Gaza, Salim Eliud, Nicolas. Bottom: Kiema, Kelvin Kithi, Nyanje, Mwinyi and Mlewa

The Game itself was fantastic!  We lost 25-6 (Simba signed a gamesheet that put it at 27-6 but I never saw a kick converted from their side and the KRU website put it at 35-6) but the score line didn’t reflect the way the game went.  Yes, they were MUCH better than us, the first truly organized team we’ve played against with very deliberate ball movement, solid forwards, a good set of backs that could not only run, but tackle, kick and sort of counter attack. 

We had a very bad run over 4-5 minutes which pretty much decided the game about mid-way through the first half. Spartans scored a well earned try from consistent forward moves pounding our guys further and further back and eventually scoring through persistence and ball possession, and shortly after regained possession in our half about midway between our twenty two and the half line.  It looked like they would kick for the corner, but they tapped and gave it to the forwards after a bit of a wait, and our boys did not react.  It was a clear run straight into goal for an extremely demoralizing try after a lot of hard work to keep them out!  Our boys were frazzled and their team went for a drink and simba though well to surprise them with a swift kickoff into an empty backfield but in the rush, a couple of our players were over anxious and offside on the kickoff (borderline!).  The ref awarded a penalty which Spartans ran again through our team for a very easy try!  15 points in a very short time. 

To be honest, they certainly deserved the win, they defended well and were much stronger than us in the pack.  In fact, they had a couple of players which gave us trouble in our exibition games against south coast.  One in particular, I think might be the best forward I’ve seen on the coast called Kadenge.  Cheers Kadenge!  Was extremely impressed with your strength, commitment and consistency.  He carried both South Coast and Spartans on his shoulders garnering the majority of the ball in all three games and teaching our young pack a lesson on each occasion.  But it wasn’t all them, I would say most of the game was played around their 22, and we probably had the lion’s share of possession.  We had a pretty decent kicking game going, although it didn’t translate into enough points for us. One of the technical mistakes I made coaching was for political reasons I put two players from Galana on the wings just to give them “morali” and they had never trained with us and basically didn’t really know where to position themselves and one of them couldn’t tackle!  I think I’ll probably not do that anymore but there is something to balancing selection and ensuring that everyone has a chance to play!  I hope they appreciated it! I was however proud of the way we played and if we keep it up, we will probably finish with a handful of wins this season and I would hope contest for the top three spots.

Next week is TUM, last year’s champs, and we should have seen them play last week as they were scheduled to play Masaku, but unfortunately that game was cancelled, seemingly because of the politics that risks to kill the game in Kenya. The problem was not that Masaku was a no show, but in fact, two teams arrived to the pitch claiming to represent Masaku.  Both teams seemed extremely organized and to be honest, I was supprised to find two teams that made the long trip from machakos and didn’t even get the chance to play!  Apparently there was some dispute between the players and the coach, the players were demanding to be paid more (or something of the like, I plead ignorance) and apparently the coach “fired the whole team” (his words!) and made a completely new one.  So the two teams were his old one and his new one.  They couldn’t come to an agreement and so it seems like TUM was awarded a walk over.  A bit unfair I think as they made the effort to show up!

That brings up my last point.  Organising anything down here on the coast is quite difficult especially when it involves moblising large numbers of people.  It’s not like back home for me, where everyone can manage some way or another to pay their own way, buys their own kit, pay for transport, food… simple very basic stuff!  And the KRU guys are definitely trying, but I do get the impression that they are a bit overwhelmed.  I am faced with organizing 60 guys, but they are faced with organizing 77 teams!  I sort of thought that we would be the least organized since we were new, but now I realized that there aren’t that many structures in place in the other clubs and for even the most established, it is not necessarily that easy to find a pitch to train and play on every week. 

So hats off to everyone that is trying hard to make rugby work in Kenya and especially the coast.  I’m doing my best here to stay positive and to find solutions (not create more problems).  I hope that like me, everyone’s goal is to ensure that more rugby is played.  The money might come boys, but only once we show that we are organized, trustworthy and solid… all this yapping back and forth doesn’t help anyone, and we need to stick together and try to get as many young people playing as possible.

Malindi RFC 8 - Pwani University 5

Things are coming along quite well at the club, we had our 3rd friendly in a month which is great and second victory on home ground.  The most encouraging part is we are starting to get some fans come out to the game, it's quite a nice place to spend a saturday afternoon as the Malindi High ground is surrounded by trees and there is quite a nice breeze!

Thanks especially to Stefano for coming out and taking pictures of the match, now that I've started playing the full 80 minutes I'm not able to take pics!  We really appreciate it!

The game itself was ok.  I actually thought we should have dominated the scoreboard.  As I wanted to play and there were no other refs someone from their side reffed and it was pretty clear that a) he had never reffed before and b) he was doing his best to give his boys the advantage.  Fairplay, I just told the boys to keep their mouths shut and play harder, it was a good experience for them.

Our pack did well as usual but didn't dominate like against South Coast.  We were missing some key players.  Simba only made it for part of the second half as he had to work and Dzenya played fly half which he is not very well suited for since he likes to bang away with the ball in hand.  We also had Teddy at Scrum Half in the first half (he's a natural hooker) and that sort of killed the flow of the ball at the start of the game.  But things improved a bit when Tyson Kiema came in at 9.  He's a great player who is really coming into his own but still has some issues that I can't figure out, he only showed up at half time despite being at the school.  He's a great player when he puts his mind to it and even a good leader.  I wish I could figure out how to motivate him properly!

At any rate, we mostly were on our back foot in the second half, the game was scrappy.  I really thought we should have crushed these guys but the pack play broke down again in the second half and with lots of injuries and substitutions we never really had a good flow going.  Waweru took over the reffing in the second half and did extremely well, he really has grown as a ref, and I suppose I appreciate him more after seeing some of the other horror shows on the coast!

At any rate, seems things keep looking up.  Carefully selecting a sponsor as I want a good match for the boys so that we can move upward and onward.

Very high attacking scrum, need to work on this!

Nice run to the outside, looks like they are all running sideways though!

Some fans, nice day for rugby eh boys?

Try after a couple of good runs against South Coast