Kenya Commercial Bank lift the Kilimanjaro ‘Castle Lager’ Rugby 7’s Cup

The Kilimanjaro ‘Castle Lager’ Rugby 7’s organised by the Moshi Kili Cats was held at the International School Moshi last weekend. Thirteen teams from Kenya and Tanzania playing some excellent rugby competed in this year’s tournament, with the unfancied KCB ‘B’ surprising many, walking away as champions, after a hard fought victory over the KCB  ‘A’ Team. They fully deserved their victory as the team had earlier knocked out the tournament favourites Mwamba.

Of the four Tanzania teams in the tournament, only the 7’s specialists, Moshi Kili Cats made it through to the main cup competition. The Kili Cats finished second in their group. They regrouped well after a 17-0 defeat to Mwamba in the opening game, and beat Kisumu 12-5. The Moshi team despite conceding an early try stuck to their tactics, spinning it from wing to wing, waiting for the gaps to open. This combined with the superior fitness of the Moshi players paid off as Fly Half Chris Drakely chipped two balls into gaps, leaving the backs to run onto them and score. In their final pool game against Mombassa, Moshi took an early lead and then as a team killed off the game through pressure defence and intelligent forward play. Moshi then took may people by surprise when they held KCB to 7-7 at half time in the Castle Cup quarter final, and considered themselves unlucky not to have gone into the break in the lead. Unfortunately KCB scored straight from the kick off in the second half and went onto win 17-7. Moshi were eventually knocked out in the Plate Semi Final by Nazerene University from Nairobi. Nazerene were leading 7-0 when Moshi harshly had a player sent off. Despite the efforts of the remaining 6 players they were unable to stop the Kenyans scoring further tries, the best of which coming from Keiron White who collected a miss-placed touch kick and ran from his own 22metre line sidestepping his way past the first defender, before throwing a huge dummy pass which sent most of team the wrong way, leaving him with an easy 50m sprint to the line. Nakuru RFC won the plate competition.

Of the other Tanzania teams, Dar Leopards despite the pre-tournament statements failed to perform on the day, and went home without scoring a point. The Northern Tanzania Barbarians also put much effort into their performances and came away with a great deal of credit. The fourth Tanzanian team, Arusha Rhinos looked impressive at times but were unable to win any of their pool matches. They recorded their only victory of the day over Dar in the Bowl semi final. They then went on to loose the Bowl final to Mwamba ‘B’.

After the play had finished, guest of honour, Mr. Renju, the Kilimanjaro Region Sports Officer, praised the organisers for the successful day and thanked Tanzanian Breweries for their generous sponsorship. In a message to Head Teachers in the Kilimanjaro Region he advocated his support for the game and highlighted the many positive benefits of playing the rugby for the region’s youth. He then urged schools to take up the offer of free coaching in their schools, provided by the Moshi Kili Cats, in order to develop the game in the Kilimanjaro Region and the country. 
 

Last modified: October 23, 2003.
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