The Hong Kong 7s Review.

After three days of sevens rugby, the Kenya 7s leave Hong Kong with their heads held high, fourth place and fifth on the overall log (72 points) a welcome return from what was a very challenging Cathay Pacific sevens.

I have not seen so may close call matches in one leg, our winning margin over the three games we won was no greater than three points. 17-14 against USA, 19-17 against France and 15-12 against Portugal. Our losing margins on the other hand were more convincing 19-0 at the hands of the Welsh, 31-7 and 36-5 against the Kiwis. It was also the first time in a while that we failed to score over 14 minutes.

Like a great professor would put it, we played with the hand brake on through most of this tournament, with our defence breached too easily at times. We did pick up the intensity against Portugal in the Cup quarter which was to me our best game over the three days.

The pick of the tournament has to be Ombachi’s performance, which was capped by a selection into the tournament’s dream team for the second time this season. He was devastating, slapping rather tossing defenders all over the place, looking at it from this point you’d say that we never missed Collo. 

The chu chu train’s absence was however felt especially by one Willie Ambaka who had formed a great partnership with the kulabu winger over the last legs. Ombachi’s style is more direct, his need for support or ability to create space for his next man is limited and this is where Willie and you might add Oscar suffered in their try returns over the weekend.

Apart from Ombachi, I’d also like to single out the captain, Tripple A Andrew ‘Arms’ Amonde. His work rate again was unquestionable, especially at the break down. You can clearly see that he leads from the very front, sadly his influence in this team usually goes unmentioned. It was great to see his kick and chase try against USA, again showing that he doesn’t always need to go through a man.

It was good to see the ‘reserves’ get more involved in this leg, especially against NZ in the 3^rdplace play off. Especially one Billy Odhiambo who had a good outing in attack, though he did suffer defensively, he can be proud of that performance. In that match we played with a bit more flair than is the norm, the ball doing most of the work for us, we did fall in the end but it was a welcome change. It was also nice to see different combinations work out, Eden did play at sweeper at some point, Biko did move in at center and if I’m not mistaken I remember seeing Ashioya at Fly Half? It is good to have players that can step up in moe than one place, makes us more unpredictable.

Our three losses came in quite similar fashion, the two teams managed to contain our physical play and dominate us at the break down. The Welsh in particular defended superbly, they disrupted us as the set plays, whether legally or not is an argument for another day. New Zealand managed to again bring out our naivety or lack of ‘street smartness’ at the rucks, managing to play the rules to their favour and benefiting from a very facilitating man in blue, mostly in the third place play off. Every time we took the ball into contact they managed to hold the ball onto the man on the ground, the penalties earned from this tactic alone killed off the game as a contest. Unfortunately for us, this is one of those things that can’t be taught overnight.

Going into Japan, we are pooled alongside Wales, USA and Scotland in Pool B, they are never easy these days, but it could have been worse, we could have been in Pool D with Samoa, England, Australia and or Argentina. A few things that might need extra work include our kick off retention, we started well against USA, getting two of three from the first half, however from that point we barely got any of our kick offs. To show just how vital they are, look at the Fiji come back in the Final. I don’t think we can work on an effective plan B in less than a week, so I say we continue working at and perfecting our route 1 play. This will probably involve and should involve work at the contact area, and adding a little pace to the play maybe.

We have set the bar at 4^thplace, and this was while playing with the proverbial hand brake on. A second cup final wouldn’t be asking for much now would it? We have had issues with consistency in the past when we have had back to back legs, performing well in the first only to slump in the second, let’s hope that doesn’t happen this time. I think the technical bench have managed the load on the players well and with Hong Kong having run for three days they had more rest time between games. Chances of a slump are minimal, the team already arrived in Tokyo yesterday and with almost similar weather conditions as was in Hong Kong those chances just got a serious tummy tuck!

Here are the local timings for the Tokyo 7’s, all games to be played on Saturday:

With that ladies and gents..have a great week ahead, will probably do a preview of Tokyo till then, enjoy the week ahead aaannndddddddddd..

KWISHA…Nimeruka Nje!!!