Simiyu happy with SA outing, focus on Tokyo Olympics

Kenya rugby sevens head coach Innocent ‘Namcos’ Simiyu says the team picked a lot of lessons in terms of game strategy during the just concluded Solidarity Camp in South Africa.

Shujaa lost 31 – 05 to hosts South Africa in the final but won the rest of the matches against Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa B, leaving Simiyu confident his charges are more polished ahead of Tokyo Olympics.

“A big step for us in terms of game improvement we had issues in our kick off reception, ball movement and our tackle completion and at the moment we have worked on them moving forward to Los Angeles camp,” said Simiyu.

Simiyu hailed their rivalry between Kenya and South Africa, and believes it is a matter of time before they overcome the Springboks.

“Solidarity is there outside the pitch and when we get inside the pitch it is business as usual, to play at our level best despite having rivalry with our opponents,” added Simiyu.

“The rivalry is there and I think we all have our own derbies like South Africa versus Kenya, Zimbabwe versus South Africa and Uganda versus Kenya so it’s quite interesting,” explained the former Shujaa skipper.

Simiyu added that his team got good competition from their opponents, saying he is happy with the results and looking forward to the Olympics later this year.

The team is expected to resume training in Nairobi ahead of another camp in Los Angeles.