Nivea Harlequins put up a solid display of focus and discipline in the second half to recover from an eighteen point deficit at half time to convincingly defeat Kenya Commercial Bank 26-21 in a thrilling encounter played at the KRFU grounds on Saturday. KCB got off the blocks first and raced to a 16-0 lead in under 15 minutes. Quins attempts to come back quickly into the game failed and their fate seemed sealed when they only managed to garner a measly penalty with KCB adding an unconverted try before the break. At this point all but Quins had written themselves off for the trophy.
But the second half was to be a reverse affair. KCB held on for all of seven minutes and by the time Quins scored their first try, the writing was on the wall. The question now was not could Quins win, but would they run out of time for what has now been called "the greatest come back in Kenyan Rugby". This they completed with barely five minutes to spare.
The entire crowd and those watching on Supersport and other channels were treated to an entertaining match and I am sure even KCB felt they lost to a better team. Contrary to my remarks mid last week, the officiating greatly helped the game flow and despite 3 yellow cards meted out during the game, the match was played in great spirit and was entertaining to the end. Kudos Kenya Harlequins for a campaign well fought.
Focus will now shift to the Bamburi Super Series starting on Saturday and to be played in five venues over East Africa.
4 Comments:
The results have actually proved that the KRFU should take the bold step make Edward Kinyany the national 15's coach. He has proven it more than once winning Kenya Cup, Enterprise Cup, ESS, Mwamba Cup and the Bamburi Series twice. The fast-tracking of Bill Githinji of Impala is a step backwards. Bill cannot make it as national 15's coach. He is another Ollows project like Mitch, Godwin, Ahaya and Bosco.
The question is never who is a stooge or project of whomever, it is more of performance achievements as per the tasks at hand. The open bias and blinding ambition of Karuga and Ollows towards the futherance of impala Agenda's relegates them to the position of obstacles and utter failures when quantifying their contribution to rugby in Kenya. Mitch Ocholla on the other hand has been excellent in his Coaching and unbiased selection and development of young talent. He may be a project of whomever but his helm at strathmore and kenya coach has been very impressive. The rugby played by players he has handled shows excellent appreciation of game playing patterns, apt gauging of player skills and the subsequent intelligent application of coaching expertise to greatly lessen their monumental size and age/experience handicaps. No other coach could even get close to him, given the resources (time/players) he has had to work with.
Honestly think Kinyany has done a good job by developing young talent with the likes of Patrice No. 12, the former saints center (No. 13 on the day), the fly half who came on, Jared Owinyo and Jeff Ojwach.
The way he used his bench was and kept his cool while seemingly losing the game phenomenal. Tank forgot he had a bench.
No offense to Mitch but no one wants a national team coach who keeps barking at his players from the bench on every Knock on as the game goes on. He is a good coach but sevens is more of his specialty.
I would put Kinyany as the 15 coach and Mitch as the 7's coach.
XXVII
The IRB (Impala Rugby Board) need to be watched closely! The level 3 courses that guys did in South Africa included Karuga, Githinji, Ollows, Mitch Ocholla and Bosco. All of these people have played for Impala or (like Godi),are associated with Impala. Paul Odera and Tank were there by default (Ollows was probably scared that Paulo would blow the whistle!). One wonders why the coaches of other clubs like Kinyany, Cardo, Mbai etc and other referees (?) could not be on that trip!
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