Shamia: Onward And Upwards

A few days to the Women’s Sevens World Series Qualifiers in Dublin, Ireland on 22nd – 23rd August. New Kenya Women’s Sevens coach, Mike Shamia is confident of securing one of the two slots to the world series.

Kenya Women's Sevens head coach Mike Shamia (Photo : Arigi)
Kenya Women’s Sevens head coach Mike Shamia (Photo : Arigi)

Despite being only a few months in the position, Shamia is not new to the Kenya Women’s rugby set-up, having been the strength and conditioning coach before his promotion. He doesn’t mince his words when he states out his priority for this season.

The short-term plan is to get mentally ready, attain the much needed game fitness and match readiness, to compete in the world series as a core team and for a medal at the Olympics. Strength and conditioning plays a key role in moulding athletes and so does a game plan that gives you the competitive edge – Shamia.

It is a chilly morning at the RFUEA Grounds but the Kenya Women’s Sevens team is full house and ready for their routine five hour training session.Despite knowing the intensity of the work-out that awaits them the Kenya Lionesses are jubilant and share laughs as they await instructions.

Shamia looks easy on the pitch, as he watches the new coaching consultant ‘Coach Ash’ as he’s popularly known, prepare the pitch for warm up. His contemplating gesture signifies only one thing – Easy Things.

‘Easy things’ by Shamia, can only be likened to former Kenya Sevens Strength and Conditioning coach Chris Brown’s ‘Yaka Yard.’ Easy things as the KCB RFC gentlemen will tell you, is the secret behind their recent successes.

Shamia’s expectations going into qualifiers are simple, to qualify. He believes that the players are mentally ready and with the timely help of Coach Ash, game fitness and match readiness will be finalized in time.

He looks forward to another successful campaign during the Olympic qualifiers which will be played on 26th -27th September in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Mike Shamia and Coach Ash plotting the day's training (Photo : Coach Ash)
Mike Shamia and Coach Ash plotting the day’s training (Photo : Coach Ash)

 

The Kenya Women 7s will be battling for those two core slots in Dublin against the likes of Brazil, China, Colombia, Hong Kong, hosts Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Samoa, South Africa and Wales.

At the close of the 2014/15 World Series, nine teams retained their core status; New Zealand, Canada, Australia, England, USA, France, Russia, Fiji and Spain, in that order, with the first four securing automatic passage to the Olympics in Rio 2016.

The African Olympic qualifier, slated for September, will see ten teams divided into two pools, battling for one slot to the Rio games :

Pool A

South Africa
Zimbabwe
Uganda
Namibia
Zambia

Pool B

Kenya
Tunisia
Madagascar
Senegal
Botswana

All the best to the Kenya Women sevens side, as they wind up their preparations for the World series qualifiers. #TeamMojaLengoMoja

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