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CollinsIndecheis tackled by Christopher Otieno of Buffaloes during the Rugby Super Series 2024 match at RFUEA. May 4, 2024. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]
Kabras Sugar’s Collins Indeche and Samuel Ovwamu of Menengai Oilers will make their senior international debuts with Kenya Simbas after being named in the 33-man squad that will be heading to South Africa for a one-month high-performance training, ahead of the 2027 Rugby World Cup Qualifiers in Uganda.
The Simbas played a training match against United Arab Emirates Rugby last weekend at the RFUEA Grounds to conclude the local program, which saw the team also train in Kakamega earlier this month.
The friendly, which was played in three 30-minute blocks, provided the technical bench with a final opportunity to trim the group of 53 to 33 who will be heading to South Africa.
Speaking on the training match and the selection process, Kenya Simbas head coach Jerome Paarwater said they have taken the best to South Africa, where they will be continuing to sharpen the boys before for the qualifiers.
“The training match offered us an opportunity to see the work that we’ve done over the last one week in Kakamega come to life, especially for the players who haven’t been in the Simbas set up for the last two years.
“That is why we played the first two groups made up of majorly these players, we were glad to see a number of them raise their hands with their performances,” he said.
The 33-man squad is a blend of seasoned Simbas players led by captain George Nyambua, as well as exciting new talents in Samuel Ovwamu and Collins Indeche.
Kenya Sevens stars Kevin Wekeksa, John Okoth, Samuel Asati, and Bethwel Anami return to the squad having featured in the 2023 Rugby World Cup qualifiers in France .
“It was important for us, to see all 47 players who have been in camp play in a game situation, which is not always possible in a training set up.
“We went through the game as a technical bench, it wasn’t easy, the first two sets had a lot of opportunities, but couldn’t convert them as well as the last set did, some of these things come with experience. We now have four weeks in South Africa to get the team ready for the Rugby Africa Cup,” he added.
On the upcoming Rugby Africa Cup in Uganda, which doubles up as the 2027 Rugby World Cup Qualifier, Jerome said;
“We’ve been following the rest of the teams in the Rugby Africa Cup, but we’ll keep focusing on ourselves, we will be playing some experienced sides from Western Province such as SWD Eagles etc, the Blue Bulls and Sanlam Boland Cavaliers, so by the time we are back, we will be ready for the challenge.”
The 33 will depart for South Africa later in the week, where they will be joined by South African based duo of David Bunduki and Thomas Okeyo during the last leg in Limpopo courtesy of the Blue Bulls as well Hillary Mwanjilwa who is working on his return to play protocol following a long injury lay off after last year’s International duty.
The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media
platforms spanning newspaper print operations, television, radio broadcasting,
digital and online services. The Standard Group is recognized as a leading
multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and
international interest.
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