Murunga bids to tighten leaky defence as Cape Town Sevens looms large

Shujaa head coach Paul ‘Pau’ Murunga has beefed up his squad with KCB’s Vincent Onyala and Cyprian Kuto as he races against time to tighten his team’s leaky defence as well as polish their tackles as the team bids for better performance at the Cape Town Sevens this weekend.

Onyala who was not part of the team that posted horrendous show at the Dubai Sevens where Shujaa finished 15th with just a point after losing all their matches, replaces winger Jeff Oluoch who  was left behind in Kenya due to a visa hitch.

Kuto linked up with the team in South Africa on Sunday and is expected to play a prominent role when Shujaa launch their quest against England on Saturday.

Shujaa are in Pool C together with Fiji and France.

In conversations with Citizen Digital from the team’s base in Cape Town, Murunga bemoaned Jeff’s injury but was upbeat that the other players who picked up knocks will be fit for the looming showdown.,

“Vincent becomes fifth junior rooky to be added to the World Series. Our target is to get to 10 rookies as we build depth for Shujaa.”

Murunga also hopes that the experienced players will settle faster in the team.

“I’m just hoping the exposed players will settle faster in the team as we wait for the senior players to join us (from Simbas World Cup repechage duty).

“We’re hoping to build a stronger squad for New Zealand and Australia,” he said in reference to the next legs of the series.

Shujaa are without six of their senior players – speedster Collins Injera, burly winger  Willy Ambaka, Dennis Ombachi, former skipper Andrew Amonde, Sammy Oliech and Nelson Oyoo –  who participated in the World Cup repechage tournament with the Simbas.

Shujaa will kick off their Cape Town Sevens title quest this Saturday at 12.21 pm (EAT) against Dubai bronze medallist England before playing Fiji at 3.2 pm. In Dubai Kenya fell to the English 43-12.

Their last pool match will be against France at 6.41 pm.