Injera focused on Shujaa glory over tries record

Singapore 7s champions Shujaa assistant captain, Collins Injera, has said his focus is to help the national rugby sevens team perform well in the penultimate and last rounds of 2015-1016 season in Paris and London.

Speaking from Paris where he is with the national team, he refuted claims that he is focusing on breaking the most tries record.

He is second in the all time list with 225 tries, five behind Santiago Gomez from Argentina, and if he scores six in the last two events of the 2015/16 HSBC World Series, he will break the record which has been there since the 2009.

“Many people think that getting six tries in two series is easy but my focus is to put systems in order so as to help perform well in the Olympics and for the individual goals will come later,” revealed Injera.

Shujaa will start the penultimate round on Friday at 8.00 pm local time (+3GMT) with a match against Portugal.

The seventh placed Shujaa, will have a busy day on Saturday, where they .play their second match in the group stages against Russia at 11.30am before playing their last match against New Zealand at 3.03pm.

Their clash against All Blacks will be a hot encounter, where their rivals will be looking for revenge against Kenya who demolished them 22-0 in the fifth Round in Las Vegas, USA.

Shujaa defeated Fiji 30-7 in the last leg in Singapore last month to win their first Main Cup title with pressure is mounting for the Benjamin Ayimba’s side to replicate their performance in Singapore.

Ayimba named a strong squad for the 10th Round making only two changes from the victorious team.

Billy Odhiambo and Alex Olaba both from Strathmore Leos are making a comeback replacing Alvin Otieno and Samuel Mutari who are injured.

Odhiambo returns to the squad after participating in the sixth series in Vancouver, Canada, while Olaba last played for the Shujaa team in 2014 during George 7s In South Africa.

The coach says this will help in nurturing young talent.

“We want to use these rounds to prepare for the Olympics later this year in Rio, Brazil,” revealed Ayimba.

The sentiments were praised by Captain Andrew Amonde.

“Everybody will be given a chance to play before the Olympics so as to enable the team to be at the same level,” said team captain Andrew Amonde.

Ayimba said the team morale is still high despite getting only one pledge from the many pledges they got after winning the main cup in the Singapore series.

Biko Adema, Oscar Ouma and Leonard Mugaisi are the senior players still on the injury list.

Kenya Sevens injured scrum-half Biko Adema hailed the influence of Head Coach Benjamin Ayimba as the main reason behind Kenya’s historic Singapore triumph saying that on and off the pitch he is always inspiring them to get better.

Their last round will be played a week later in London, England.

Tags:

Benjamin Ayimba Andrew Amonde Singapore 7s collins injera Kenya 7s HSBC World Series France 7s

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