Gilgil town, Ruffians win second edition of Kings Shield 7s tournament

Gilgil Town Secondary School and Ruffians emerged winners of the last leg of the King's Shield that was played at the Bahati Stadium in Nakuru on Saturday 21 October.

The tournament brought together over 200 players who were under the age of 18 years. The matches were played in a round-robin format and teams that topped their respective pools proceeded to the semifinals.

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Girls category

In the girls' category, Gilgil Town Secondary School defeated Little Sports Academy 19-00 in the closely contested finals.

To reach the final stage, Gilgil Town had seen off Bahati High 33-5 in the semis while Little Sports Academy edged Bisson 35-7.

Boys' category

In this category, Ruffians won the title after holding off JM Bahati 28-7. To proceed to the finals, Ruffians had received a 19-0 clean sheet from Nakuru Select, while JM Bahati humbled Nakuru Teachers 17-5.

Speaking on the event, Gilgil Secondary School coach who doubles up as the event organizer Allan Bush noted that the tournament was slowly but surely achieving its dream of uplifting rugby talents for both girls and boys at the grassroots level.

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"Throughout the two-month tournament, we have least identified a team of boys and girls among the teams that participated (dream team). Secondly, we had the idea to uplift grassroots rugby and we achieved that for instance Bahati Constituency with their leaders plan to support the young boys and girls through rugby and beyond," Bush offered.

The contemplative coach also used the famous Norman Vincent quote, “When you change your thoughts, remember to also change your world.”

"It's time for the young blood to take over rugby from the grassroots level for us to see changes in our big clubs and teams," he concluded.

Boys' Pools

Pool A: Bissons, Ruffians, Nakuru Select

Pool B: Kabazi, Nakuru KITI, Nakuru Teachers

Girls' Pools

Pool A: Little Sports Academy, Bahati RFC, Gilgil Garrison, Teachers Rugby

Pool B: Bissons, NYS Spades, Gilgil Town Secondary School

Semis Boys

Ruffians 19-0 Nakuru Select

JM Bahati 17-5 Nakuru Teachers

Semis Girls

Little Sports Academy 35-7 Bisson RFC

Gilgil Town Secondary 33-5 Bahati RFC

Final Boys: Ruffians 28-7 JM Bahati

Final Girls: Gilgil Town Secondary 19-0 Little Sports Academy