TITIITI TI RIRIRIII (OLLEEE!!)…that is the trumpet sound that used to play before every kick off during the R.W.C…yes the one that was severely molested at sevens! Welcome one and all to Odd shaped balls..don’t worry, it’s not a blog on porn. (Sorry for bursting your bubble!) The name is derived from the shape of the rugby ball and is widely used to refer to the sport. Hi am Poghie, an ‘elite’ member of the Kenya Rugby community, lol! anyway, this sport played with an odd shaped ball is my first love, still can’t decide between it and my girl friend (pole babes si you jua it’s only you..hizo zingine ni details!), I used to play it myself but retired early to get on the “paper trail”, by paper I mean money and books. So you are not reading from the guy who shouts ‘OFFSIDE’ when it’s actually a forward pass! My allegiance is to KCB, the Bulls and the Boks , but for purposes of this blog I am an impartial writer, first. I will be doing most of the posts here, you can reach me with any ideas, criticisms et all at Pitseh Ndonga Poghie on Facebook and @pitseh_poghie on twitter. Expect my two cents (or more) on anything and almost everything Kenya Rugby, I hope you will enjoy reading this as much as I do writing it for y’all!!
With the pleasantries out of the way, let’s get to it. I promised myself that I’d steer away from the ongoing politics, but I also promised myself not long ago that I’d stop drinking…we all know how that goes. Besides I believe that it’s too great an issue to be side stepped by anyone who claims to love this game. Quick recap, the KRU released Kenya cup fixtures on Tuesday which included Machine, Kisumu and Kakamega, even after some of the clubs now dubbed ‘The elite clubs’ (Quins,K.C.B,Impala,Nondies,Nakuru and HomeBoyz) raised opposition at an earlier meeting on Sunday mainly to the criteria used to promote the said clubs among other issues such as finances.Machine which finished last in the previous Kenya cup was to be relegated, the rest have been playing in the E.S.S if am not mistaken. The original list included Mombasa but they walked out of the Sunday meeting claiming “Aaah kwani hii Rugby yenu lazima? Wacha ikae turudi zetu baharini” hehehe seriously though, they cited financial constraints. Even Blak Blad wanted in and why not, they won the uni. League.The elite clubs are set to boycott the fixtures and have lined up friendlies( am calling it the Kenya Friendlies cup), as follows Impala Vs HomeBoyz and Quins vs KCB. They have also formed a company the Rugby Enterprise Limited, whose vibe am yet to catch up with..mara it’s to run the Kenya Cup and E.S.S and has the full support of the K.R.U then other quarters have it that it is to run a parallel league.
As is, the KRU league starts Saturday with the following fixtures QUINS VS KISUMU, KCB VS MACHINE, IMPALA VS HOMEBOYZ, MWAMBA VS STRATH, and NAKURU VS NONDIES. The only fixture that will surely be honoured is the Mwamba one, but the Impala HB game is a friendly and a K.C (feels very weird using those initials) fixture at the same time. Make of it what you will, but they are calling it a friendly! The friendly cup games are to kick off at 2.00 p.m at the ngong road fields with team 2 action. Word had it that there was in house scrums and mauls at the quins top brass with one half willing to play the K.C fixtures and the other boycotting the same. There was supposed to be a meeting yester night according to this word which has not yet returned the outcome of the said meeting..thus I take that they are still in R.E.L. Back to the union, a few questions really, didn’t Walker Texas Ranger (Mr. Muthee) make it clear before coming into office that he was planning to expand the league, as he has done? Even so did the K.R.U consult with the members as to who was to be included into the league and criteria to be used? So what does the constitution have on the matter? We would all like to see rugby grow, The two are just taking different paths to the same try line (not goal!) developing rugby, in my opinion as naive as it may seem. The two fractions should sit down come up with solutions to this impasse together, put away their egos keeping in mind an old cliché, ‘no one is bigger than the sport’. They should realise that they are leaders and should start acting like so, the forming of a splinter company to me is not the way. You solve nothing by breaking away,in fact you worsen the situation, look at what happened with soccer. The guys up there should know the future of this great sport and the careers of thousands of players rest with them. I just wish the same vigour and passion was shown when dealing with real issues like players’ allowances.
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| Patrice anamaliza mtu nguvu!! |
Enough with the politics, now to the game.. the HSBC sevens finally kicked off, if you have been in a hole here are the day 1 scores :
1. Kenya 5 v NZ 26 try by Sidney ashioya
2. Kenya 7 v Fiji 26 try by Oscar Ouma (conversion by Sidney Ashioya)
3. Kenya 19 v Niue 7 tries by Oscar Ouma, Michael Agevi and Willy Ambaka.(Charles Kanyi converting)
It was never going to be easy, maybe even it couldn’t be harder..what with the new squad and that pool? Having said that I think the boys did good. We defended way better as a unit, a few handling errors let us down and lapses here and there..nothing we can’t change. Na hey tuliua hao maguys wa Niue (just wanted to say that!) This team, just needs a bit of time and the results will start coming our way, I can guarantee that. My pick from day one would be Oscar Ouma, he worked hard on the break downs and got a couple of tries for his efforts. Day two sees an early start, we play Tonga, at 4.38 a.m . in the Bowl quarters. Here are our possible timings, given we win or lose the Tonga game. Kenya time obviously…
1. Shield Semi – 7.44 a.m 1. Bowl Semi – 8.28 a.m
2. Shield Final – 11.00 a.m 2. Bowl Final – 11.30 a.m
So whether you stay up today or wake up early..lets get behind the mboys!! The bowl will be a very good start.
After that, think I’ll take to Ngong road, at the impala parking (former tusker village) and toss a coin to decide which friendlies cup game I’ll watch, since am being impartial and all.
With that fair Ladies and Gents, its full time, my fat lady has sang and the final whistle has gone! What ati ther was no half time? Feel free to leave your comment below (fungua roho) on anything..I have tried to give the page a kenyan feel but ka nimeongeza ukamba mingi tell me! Also if you like what you have read usikue mchoyo…spread the word!! Thank you..
KWISHA!!!
