Meet Hadji, at 21, he’s the rugby guru at the coast, guiding Kwale so high

Kwale High School surprised the rugby fraternity by staging a memorable rise to the national school games after defeating Kaya Tiwi School to be crowned champions of the Coast region during the inter-county games held in Kwale County.

Already undefeated in the sub-county and county levels, Kwale added another gear to their all round performance and dug deep to secure a slot in the nationals for the first time since 2010.

All this is courtesy of 21 year old head coach Mwinyi  Hadji, the school’s alumni.

Hadji  finished his high school education in 2014 and immediately engaged in undertaking online courses to become a rugby coach.

“The passion for rugby has been with me since primary school. Rugby is my life and I have always wanted to coach and nurture more rugby players from the coastal region,”Hadji told Citizen Digital.

He went on: “That’s why I did those online courses and now the fruits are slowly being seen.”

Still unbeaten this term, Mwinyi is determined to go all the way and concur East Africa.

“We are much psyched for the nationals, we want to continue with our unbeaten run, our rallying call in the campaign is “team virgin” and we are not planning to lose it any time soon,”Mwinyi said in an apparent reference to their bid to jealously guard their unbeaten run.

“To be where we are today is purely had work. We are not going to the nationals as participants; we are going there to compete and win the national crown, so that we can represent the country in the east Africa games,”he added.

The national secondary school games begin on Tuesday in Eldoret and Kwale High School are determined to shake off the tag that schools from the coast region are perennially pretenders to the throne.

“The opponents should be aware that we are not the soft ones…the determination and hunger in this team is amazing. These boys are fighters and you will see that in the Eldoret ,”he said confidently, laying the marker ahead of the one-week event that will pit the creme de la creme in school competitions.

Asked on how he manages to motivate his charges, he said: “I take them to the gym, for strength and conditioning.  When I have cash, I try buy them ‘something special’– for them to eat something different from what’s offered in the school menu, and it has so far worked miracles because we are very friendly to each other.”