Kenya Cup: Kabras off the mark with Monks demolition

Kenya Cup champions Kabras Sugar won 40-13 in their season opener against Catholic Monks as the newly promoted side received a rude welcome to the top-flight on Saturday.

Kabras fielded an experienced side as they sought a strong start at their backyard in Kakamega but the holders conceded first via a penalty.

But they hit back almost immediately as Patrick Lumumba scored the opening try of the game with Ntabeni Dukisa claiming the extras hand his side a 7-3 lead.

It was a one-way traffic from that point as Kabras dug in with Paul Abuto scoring twice in succession with Ntabeni Dukisa hitting the conversion to put the hosts 19-3 up.

Two quick tries by Patrick Lumumba and Barry Robinson were successfully converted by the magnificent Dukisa as Monks fell 30 points behind by half time.

The visitors came out of the blocks fastest in the second half enjoying a good passage of play but failed to take advantage of that spell.

Kabras extended their lead 15 minutes after the restart through Victor Were and this time it was Valerian Tendwa who took the extras.

Monks scored a penalty after forcing Kabras to a series of errors minutes later, and eventually scored their first try through Victor Omupede and Eric Ogutu converted successfully to end the match at 40-13.

Kabras Sugar new head coach Carlos Katywa was particularly not pleased with his team's performance is the second half saying he needed more from the young prospects who were given a run in the second half.

"We have a project that we are trying to build here and that involves developing the young guys but I was pleased with some of them. They need to listen and learn quickly," Katywa gave his brutal assessment.

For Monks, it was baptism by fire as they were handed a sobering introduced to the big league but head coach John Isalambo says he feels they are equal to the task owing to the gutsy second half performance.

"In the second half we decided to show up more and you can see the boys did better. We were slow but I believe we have a young squad; some of the guys got stage fright, which is normal but will come out better with time," he said.

Monks will take on Black blad in their second match day fixture as Kabras take on another newly promoted side in the shape of Mean Machine.

In another fixture played at the Ruaraka grounds in Nairobi, KCB demolished Kenya Harlequins 38-0 to show early intent of regaining the Kenya Cup title.