#SimbasToRWC2023

On 24th January 2021, Simbas head coach Paul Odera made the very bold claim that the Simbas will be heading to the 2023 Rugby World Cup, on this special episode of the Hecklers Podcast.

At that point, Paulo was in his third year as head of the Kenya fifteens program, he had so far beaten Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Uganda. He had also earned himself the title of ‘blogger coach,’ owing to his public documentation of the Simbas journey on his blog (what happened to that though?!).

When this claim was made, many laughed it off, fast forward to 12th June 2022, Paulo and his Simbas have managed to turn those laughs into a belief that indeed, we are on our way to the 2023 Rugby World Cup…so what changed?

Well, it got worse before it got better, in July 2021, the Simbas hosted Senegal and Zambia in the first round of the world cup qualifiers. It was the first time we were seeing the Simbas in action since that win against Zimbabwe in 2019 at the NAC. The first game was against Senegal, easy pickings, right? Wrong! We lost to Senegal in Nairobi…no we were annihilated by Senegal, it was bad, we lost line outs to a prop!

You can imagine the public backlash, we were baying for the heads of Simbas technical bench, ‘Waende wote!!’ In typical Paulo reaction, a week later in a must-win game against Zambia to keep our RWC 2023 hopes alive, he goes on to start Samuel Asati at 13, a position he had never played before! The starting backline was all of 5 foot nothing, no more than 62 Kgs…against Zambians who were built like oaks!

Yes, we won and kept our world cup dreams alive, the icing on the cake was a try orchestrated and finished by the 5-foot nil quartet of Kubu, D.Coulson, Tanga, and Asati! As a country, we collectively let off a sigh of relief, so what next? This Paulo guy still looks clueless.

At the tail end of 2021, we were invited to play the dream Carling Currie Cup side, Brazil and Namibia. We ended up taking on the Diables Barcelona side as well, a welcomed run of matches to expose the side to this level of competition. We beat Brazil and the Barcelona side lost to the Currie Cup side and stood toe to toe with Namibia in the first half before a monumental collapse in the second. We were picking lessons…

2022 came with whispers that we will be playing in the first division of the Carling Currie Cup, whispers that were later confirmed to be true. After a couple ofdelays ,and 80player call-ups, we were off to Mzansi, 10 weeks of nothing but rugby!

Progressively through those 10 weeks, the Simbas slowly ticked those small boxes, more often than not in a painstakingly frustrating fashion, but it all came into place in the last two weeks of the campaign, back home at the RFUEA. The Simbas were lined up to face defending champions Leopards and the second team on the log, EP Elephants, having only managed one win, against bottom-placed Border Bulldogs, a labored one at that.

What do the Simbas go on to do? Beat the Leopards 51-35, before staging a dream 41-24 comeback win against the Elephants, after trailing 0-17 within the opening 20 minutes of the match, 13-24 at HT. Up next, the 2023 RWC qualifer from July 2nd in France! So what are our chances, realistically?

We have made immense progress since that loss to Senegal, we look closer to that 2015 side than we have ever looked, but we are still rough on the edges. For starters, we have only really performed at home, with altitude as our player 24, in SA we still looked a few steps off the pace.

Our set-piece, especially the line out has left a lot to be desired, even at home. We seem to rely on broken play and haven’t yet settled on a game plan, if any.

The Simbas kick off their last push to the RWC 2023 against Uganda on the 1st of July and we seem to have all but settled on a match day 23, I don’t see much changing in the one that played against the Elephants. I expect the Ugandans who have had little in terms of preparation to play proper heart, soul, and disruptive rugby, trying to knock us out of our rhythm, buoyed by their recent wins in the shorter version, we shall dismantle them!

After which we will be up against either Senegal or Algeria, for obvious reasons, I hope we meet the Senegalese, on the other side of the draw, Namibia will most probably be facing Zimbabwe, where I’ll be backing the Sables, to set up a replay of the 2015 RWC qualifier…

While we may not be the finished product, this Simbas side has reignited that belief that we indeed have a realistic chance to play at the 2023 Rugby World Cup! So ladies and gentlemen, shall we… #SimbasToRWC2023

KWISHA…Nimeruka Nje!!