I have been trying to stay away from the recent troubles rocking our beloved sevens team, in the pretext of all will be well. It is not the first time players have downed their boots, and we have always been able to find solutions.
This one though, seems to be special, escalating to a point that we fielded a team with 7 debutants in the first leg of the IRB World series in Australia. In a year that the series will be used as the Olympic qualifier. Yes, there is another route to Rio for the 2016 Olympics, through the continental play offs, but this is the Kenya sevens, we don’t aim for consolations.
The side to the Gold Coast sevens bowed out at the Shield final, after showing great promise on Day one, things took a turn on Day 2. It was never about the score board at the Cbus Super Stadium for us, it was all about seeing how this new look team would adapt.
I have picked up a few things from the Gold coast. One is that this strike was a blessing in disguise, how does that saying go, every cloud has a silver lining, right? We saw something we have been missing for a long while, flair, passion and pure hunger, pride in donning the red, green, black and white.
Not saying that previous teams did not have passion or pride, but these young charges had it turned up an extra notch. In Australia, we unearthed some real gems that would have taken longer to get noticed.
We also realised that the World series which was an unforgiving monster, is now even meaner. Last year’s high flyers New Zealand could not get past the cup quarter finals, the cup final between Fiji and Samoa was one of the best finals I have seen in a while.
With those observations, we are now at crossroads and below are our options :
Ignore the issues that led to the strike, drop the players all together and stick with the new promising faces
Let us not kid ourselves, the players who were on strike had valid issues on the table. Retainers for new call ups, who in the past went without as much as a dime, medical cover etc.
So we label the players who have sacrificed so much for this country, ‘Rebels’ forget about them and keep playing with the new crop of players.
Possible Outcomes of going down this road : We risk relegation from being a core side, while other sides are strengthening, we would be shooting ourselves in the foot tackling the series this way.
We might as well forget the Olympics all together, most think that the African qualifier will be a walk in the park. But the likes of Zimbabwe, Tunisia and Uganda have nothing else to work toward, all they are concentrating on right now is those qualifiers. They will have the same experienced sides that almost stretched us here in Mombasa last year.
We will sweep those issues under the carpet, continue as we were probably with some partial fixes here and there. Then two or three years down the line, the same issues will pop up, it will be an endless cycle of strikes.
We will be wasting away years of investments put into those 18 players on strike, not forgetting that most of them were just hitting their prime and had 5 to 8 years to give at the very highest level. Basically we would be slashing our player base which stood at 40, by almost half.
A quick peek into the future, we have the sevens CAR cup in Zimbabwe, set to take place in December or there about, around the same time as the Dubai leg. How ready will the side to that tournament be, it will be great exposure no doubt. Last year we comfortably formed two able sides, will we be able to do the same this year?
Sit down with the players on strike, get a working solution and get back to business
The most sensible way to solve this whole debacle would be that the players and their management have a meeting and come up with a workable solution for both.
These two need to meet half way, both have very valid points it is just a matter of giving up some ground, acknowledging that we need ‘each and one another’ (as one of my teachers used to put it.)
Going down this route will mean that we will be able to pick the best side available, every time, not mentioning that the battle for those 12 slots will be something else. We will get back to building towards the Olympics and beyond.
The sooner the better really, we could get back on track in Dubai, have a shot, however slim at making the top four this year. Beat the USA…hehe!
What I am saying, in short is that we need to end this stand off once and for all. I want to see Augustine Lugonzo, Mike Wanjala, Jacob Ojee play next to Collins Injera, Billy Odhiambo and Oscar Ouma. I want to see the Chu chu train have a go at the all-time top try scorer accolade.
I want to see the passion and flair this squad showed, coupled up with the pure grit and direct play that was displayed by the ‘other’ side. I want to see the good old days back, I am sure you would too..
KWISHA….Nimeruka Nje!!!!
