KCB’s Olago picks positives after first match in a year against Leos

With more than a year separating their win over Strathmore Leos and their last match, KCB rugby coach Curtis Olago picked up positives from Saturday’s victory.

KCB last played a Kenya Cup match back on Saturday, 22 February 2020 when they beat Menengai Oilers 43-13.

The Bankers showed signs of rustiness in the 24-16 victory over Leos on Saturday as they trailed for longer parts of the game but a late surge saw them come up with maximum points.

Despite labouring past Leos, Olago was delighted with his boys’ performance and is looking to build on the win as they started their title defence with a victory. 

“The game was very good, if you ask me, we controlled the game apart from the 50-50 stuff which was not in our hands but first game after a year, I commend my boys, they have worked so hard given that Strathmore are a side that has match fitness and they have played a game already, this is our first game after a year.”

“We now need to step up from where we, we were treating this as our first friendly game, we have seen where we are and the only way from here is to go up,” said Olago.

With KCB going into the half time break with a narrow 12-10 victory, Olango revealed that his half time team talk was to encourage the boys to have patience and also lamented to Covid-19 enforced break that halted their momentum.

“We tried to keep our patience and see what is working and what is not working and tried to read the game, it is good that we scored and we now have to work hard.”

“I think Covid really messed us up, we will not get the tempo that we had gathered but we will continue building the tempo, it is very hard to start punishing yourself after the first game,” he added.

KCB next face Kenya Harlequins on Saturday 6 March hoping to extend their winning run.