Impressive Shujaa advance to the World Cup Round of 16

The men’s national rugby sevens side Shujaa successfully advanced to the Round of 16 of the ongoing 2022 Rugby World Cup Sevens taking place in Cape Town, South Africa after comfortably seeing off Tonga 19-0 in their opening pre-round of 16 match played on Friday morning.

In a one sided first half performance controlled by the Damian McGrath currently coached side, Willy Ambaka and Nelson Oyoo made the domination count as they touched down two successfully converted tries by Sammy Oliech to give the team a deserved 14-0 lead at the break.

A closely contested second half, where Shujaa again enjoyed the majority of territory, saw Kenya only manage one try from the sheer pace of Vincent Onyala who sealed the 19-0 victory following the first missed conversion of the match.

With the victory, Kenya set up a massive clash against Argentina in the Round of 16 as Tonga dropped to the Bowl competition which will decide positions 17 to 24.

The match will kick off at 1723EAT on Friday.

Shujaa, who qualified to the event after their disappointing third place finish in the Rugby Africa 7s competition held in Uganda back in April this year, will be keen to get the momentum going as the ‘winner takes all’ format of knock-out competition means every match will count in order to become world champion.

Shujaa, who are two-time semifinalists in the World Cup Sevens, having reached the last four in 2009 in Dubai under the tutelage of the late Benjamin Ayimba and again in 2013 (Moscow) with Mike Friday at the helm, are making their sixth consecutive World Cup appearance.

FKF President Nick Mwendwa is back!

This is after debuting in 2001 in Mar del Plata followed by subsequent editions in 2005 (Hong Kong), 2009 (Dubai), 2013 (Moscow) and 2018 (San Francisco).