Cape Town 7s: Draw with Spain knocks Shujaa out of Main Cup contention

For a third consecutive outing in the 2023 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, the men’s national rugby 7s side, Shujaa, will not contend for main cup glory as they finished bottom of Group C following a hard fought 5-5 draw in the last pool clash played on Saturday afternoon.

Despite being beaten by Argentina and New Zealand in the first two games, the Damian McGrath currently coached side had a far-fetched chance of making the last 8 on the back of Spain’s shocking victory over New Zealand on Friday which meant they needed to record a huge margin victory against Spain.

Cape Town 7s: Shujaa suffer second consecutive defeat in loss against New Zealand

However, that failed to materialize as the game ended up being an even-steven affair forcing the team to finish the group on four points behind the other teams.

In the closely contested tie, Spain were the first to score after a quick penalty tap left Kenya in sixes and sevens allowing Eduardo Lopez to slice through the open gap. The conversion was however short as Spain took the narrow lead.

Moments after struggling to pierce through the resolute Spain defense, captain Nelson Oyoo finally helped Kenya restore parity in the match as he unleashed a clean pair of heels before touching down following a scrum move from just five metres out. With the conversion also veering wide, the game got to the halftime interval tied at 5-5.

The second half proved to be a cagey affair as a litany of ball handling errors and crucial turnovers prevented both sides from creating anything meaningful in terms of attack as they were forced to both settle for the draw that ended knocking both sides out of Main Cup contention as New Zealand ended up defeating Argentina to top Group C.

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