Amonde praises Shujaa transition as new stars emerge

The national rugby sevens captain Andrew Amonde has praised the new blood coming through the ranks as the old guard near the sunset of their careers.

Including Amonde, only three other players that participated at the 2016 Olympics in Rio were named in Shujaa’s latest squad bound for this year’s Games in Tokyo.

Amonde, 37, said the stark change in personnel points to a successful transition with new stars emerging to take over the baton.

“Our transition is good you can see in the last Olympics is only four guys who made it to this squad, we have very good young players who have come through the system who’re going for their first Olympics and I think the blend of young players and the experienced ones will have an excellent performance in Japan,” said Amonde.

Amonde said it won’t be easy in the Olympics but it will be a good experience to the young generation coming in the team.

“Olympics is not easy so for them is to continue with what they’re doing and everything will fall in place, so mine is to ask them to keep working hard and make sure they get results as well,” said Amonde.

Kenya’s HSBC top try scorer Collins Injera, Willy Ambaka and Billy Odhiambo are the other three players with Amonde optimistic of doing better in this Olympics compared to Rio Olympics where they finished 11th overall.

“Our biggest target is to improve from the last Olympics. We can’t afford to finish 11th or 12th so the biggest thing for us is to just kick our boxes and improve in everything we’re going to do from the pools to the last game we’re going to play,” added Amonde.

The KCB’s flanker will captain the team during the Olympic sevens tournament which will be held on July 26-28 at the Tokyo Stadium.