Shujaa ready for a return to HSBC Series, KRU boss Ndale says

Kenya Rugby Union KRU vice chair Moses Ndale says the national rugby sevens team Shujaa are ready for the commencement of the HSBC World Sevens Series in Dubai later next month.

According to Ndale, the team having been together for over a year, have gelled well and improved understanding amongst themselves and that will be vital ahead of their return to the Ivy League.

“The team is ready except for those few injury concerns. Looking at how the national sevens circuit was played; you could see the competitiveness especially among the young guys; they’ve raised their hands to be counted.”

“I believe they just need to have more time together, of which as the union we are planning to ensure they have more camps together of course through the help of the government. Once they play closely together, they grow together and we are really working on that because at the end of the day we want to stay in the HSBC.”

He went on: “We also want to organize two or three friendlies before they go down to Dubai, because it’s important for them to gauge their level of preparedness before the season starts.”

The KRU vice supremo has at the same time applauded the technical bench for scouting the core group of young players who he says will serve the country for several years to come.

“For me as a vice chairman of KRU, I’m happy to see young guys coming back to Shujaa, because they will give service to Shujaa for several years. The way they played during the Olympics and qualifiers in Zimbabwe, you could see that the boys are hungry for the game. Those are young guys and for me it's high time we gave an opportunity to young guys to play the game.”

Having successfully defended their Safari 7s crown a fortnight ago, the onus is now on KRU to prepare a good high-performance camp as well as high level friendly matches before the start of the HSBC circuit on November 30, 2024.