Kenya Lionesses crowned World Challenger Series champions again in South Africa

The Kenya Lionesses celebrated International Women’s Day with a convincing 17-00 victory over South Africa to win the second leg of the Challenger Series held at the Athlone Stadium in Cape Town.

The Lionesses drew first blood in the first half as Naomi Amuguni landed the first try of the match as she rounded her defender to give Lionesses an early 5-0 lead. The conversion attempt by Sinaida Mokaya was unsuccessful, Kenya holding on to the 5-0 to half time.

The Kenya Lionesses were confident and their focus was unfazed as they kept on attacking the Springbok Women’s defensive line in the second half. Captain Grace Okulu was tasked with the second half restart, kicking the ball deep into South Africa’s half.

The Lionesses’ defensive line quickly and stealthily following the ball and putting South Africa under pressure which resulted in SA’s winger Ayanda Malenga knocking on the ball inside their 22.
Both teams traded a few ball handling errors, however, Kenya emerged more clinical when they had the ball in hand. Off a scrum in South Africa’s 22M line, Sinaida Mokaya sent the ball to the experienced Sheila Chajira who then passed it to the mercurial winger Sharon Auma.

Sharon’s pace was no match for the Springbok Ladies as she made her way to the try line to land a converted center post try extending the Lionesses lead to 12-0 with three minutes left on the clock.

Head Coach Denis Mwanja made changes after this play, Sharon was replaced by her equally fast teammate, Freshia Oduor who landed the Kenya Lionesses winning try. She landed a corner post try but the conversion was unsuccessful bringing the full time score to 17-00 in favour of Kenya Lionesses.

On their way to the final, Kenya Lionesses beat Colombia 12-5 in the cup semifinal while in the Pool matches, they had beaten Belgium 17-05 and Uganda 10-05 in the golden point.

The Challenger series starts with back-to-back events in Cape Town, with the top-ranked eight men's and women's teams progressing to the third and final tournament at the Henryk Reyman's Municipal Stadium in Krakow on 11-12 April. 

Top eight women's teams, Kenya, South Africa, Argentina, Colombia, Thailand, Czechia, Poland and Uganda, celebrated International Women's Day by qualifying for the next round in Krakow.

"Reflecting on their second World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger win in Cape Town, the captain, Grace Okulu said: This is the first time we achieved back-to-back wins in the Sevens Challenger and we are now Challenger champions. We are now ready for anything." 

The four men's and women's teams with the most cumulative points gained across the three Challenger rounds will then qualify for the HSBC SVNS Play Off in Los Angeles on 3 – 4 May, where they will face the bottom four ranked teams from HSBC SVNS 2025 in a high-stakes promotion and relegation tournament with four coveted places in future SVNS at stake. 

The Challenger was introduced in February 2020 to boost the development of rugby sevens across the globe and provide a clear promotion pathway to reach the top level of global rugby sevens for the short format of the game, which has experienced massive growth over the past two decades since the introduction of the global sevens series and becoming an Olympic sport at the Rio 2016 Games.