Kenya Rugby Seven’s women’s team,Lionesses, beat hosts South Africa 17-0 to win the second leg of the Challenger series in Cape Town,South Africa.
Enroute to the final Kenya who won the opening leg last weekend at the same venue,had seen off Colombia 12-5 in the semi finals while South Africa whom Kenya beat in the semis in the first leg, dumped out Czechia 21-15.
In terse and hard fought final Kenya broke the deadlock in the 5th minute when Naomi Amugumi broke free from a scrum. Kenya led 5-0 at halftime. Lionesses resorted long kicks which proved a menace for their nervy opponents who committed ball handling errors.
The David Mwanja coached side capitalized from the resultant scrums from which they launched the attack.Sharon Auma sprinted down right to score the second try that was successfully converted by Sinaida Nyachio for a 12-0 lead.
Freshia Owuor scored the third try to seal the 17-0 win for Kenya which gave them the second leg title after emerging the winners of the first leg held at the same venue March 1st -2nd .
Reflecting on their second World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger win in Cape Town, the captain, Grace Okulu said: ‘’This is the first time we achieved back-to-back wins in the Sevens Challenger and we are now Challenger champions. We are now ready for anything.”
Following the triumph Kenya leads a list of 7 other countries that progress to the third round of the series scheduled 11-12 April in Krako,Poland.Other teams that have qualified for the third leg include;South Africa,Argentina,Colombia,Thailand,Czechia,Poland and Uganda.
The four men’s and women’s teams with the most cumulative points gained across the three Challenger rounds will then qualify for the HSBC sevens play off in Los Angeles on 3 – 4 May, where they will face the bottom four ranked teams from this season’s HSBC sevens in a high-stakes promotion and relegation tournament with four coveted places at stake.
