Shujaa open Rugby World Cup campaign against Tonga

The men’s national rugby 7s side Shujaa will be looking to get their 2022 Rugby World Cup Sevens campaign off to a perfect start when they take on Tonga on Friday morning in their first match of the knockout tournament being held in Cape Town, South Africa from 9-11 September 2022.

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 right from the word go as the ‘winner takes all’ format of knock-out competition means every match will count as teams will need to win every time they enter the pitch in order to become world champions.

In South Africa, 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, will be hoping they can replicate those performances in what will be their sixth consecutive World Cup appearance after debut in 2001 in Mar del Plata followed by subsequent editions in 2005 (Hong Kong), 2009 (Dubai), 2013 (Moscow) and 2018 (San Francisco).

The 24-team men’s competition begins on Friday with a qualification round involving teams seeded from nine to 24 where Shujaa lie.

The seedings for both men’s and women’s competitions were based on points accrued during the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in 2020 and 2022, while teams who do not participate on the Series were seeded using their rankings gained at the World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series 2020 in conjunction with regional ranking positions ending in July 2022.

The winners of the qualification round will progress to the round of 16 where they will take on the top eight seeded teams, while the losers will go into the Bowl competition which will decide positions 17 to 24.

The winner between Shujaa and Tonga will face Argentina in the Round of 16 and the loser drops to the bowl to face either Scotland or Jamaica.

FKF President Nick Mwendwa is back!

Pre-Round of 16 Fixtures

Ireland vs Portugal 9.45am

Canada vs Zimbabwe 10.07am

Samoa vs Uganda 10.29am

Scotland vs Jamaica 10.51am

Kenya vs Tonga 11.23am

Wales vs Korea 11.45am

Hong Kong vs Uruguay 12.07pm

Germany vs Chile 12.29pm