Mwanja lauds Lionesses' resilience in Challenger title march

Lionesses headed to Poland having claimed two tournament wins in South Africa and a Bronze medal was enough to edge out close rivals South Africa for the Challenger title.

“We’ve set a record which has never been done before; we look at it as we are matriarchs in this; we’ve opened the door, create possibilities, create awareness and make other girls believe and also qualify to the next level but we are not getting ahead of ourselves. We are quietly confident as we look forward to Los Angeles,” said Mwanja.

Mwanja says he is proud of what the ladies have achieved and will be looking to complete the season by claiming promotion to the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, come next month.

“The mental strength of the team has really grown because of the commitment, the sacrifice, the hard work that we have put in so I would say we have grown in terms of mental stability, the challenges we have faced have enabled us to be adaptive, to be more courageous; also, for them (Lionesses) to understand that the future is in their hands, so it's just owning the process and them believing in themselves.”

The KCB Assistant Coach wants the girls to stay humble as they prepare for the final shootout later in May.

“We need to sharpen up on our skill level, sharpen up our distribution and be more decisive because sometimes we were a bit hesitant when we could have kicked the ball and played in the right zones, we were hesitant.

"We need to be more clinical in our finishes and also very tactical in how we take on every game. We also want to be proactive, getting to the game and scoring quick tries which psychologically will boost us so we are looking at intense sessions which stimulate how we play when we get to LA,” he said.

South Africa, Argentina and Colombia completed the top four after Kenya in that order, and will face the last four teams in the main series in hunt for promotion to the World Series.