Unbowed Pirates vow to keep trying the raid… despite early baptism by fire

South Coast Pirates head coach Kevin Amiani has attributed their poor start in the Kenya Cup to facing “ the best of the best in the country”, saying it has been a baptism by fire.

Pirates commenced their season by facing the country’s two best teams - KCB RFC and Kabras Sugar, which gives Amiani hope they will improve.

“It’s not the best start any team or coach would want to have,” he explained. “As you have mentioned we started by facing the best teams in the country and we knew it would be tough and the idea was we try and minimize the scores so that we don’t have a big points difference by the end of it all.

That plan didn’t work against KCB because we lost 95-5, but we tried to rectify that during our game against Kabras.”

Amiani says they’ve picked plenty of lessons in the opening three matches.

“The stage is big, there is a big difference between Kenya Cup and the Championship, in terms of intensity of the game, also the way the league is officiated is a bit different. So we have learnt a lot but basically there is a big difference between Kenya Cup and the championship and that’s why you see normally the teams coming from the Championship struggle to cope in the Kenya Cup.”

Being the only Coast region representatives in the top tier, Amiani says the team’s success and participation in the Kenya Cup has inspired rugby dreamers in the region.

“We’ve managed against all odds because normally rugby is known to be played by guys from upcountry and Nairobi; so us being there has basically inspired other teams that are in the coast especially the teams in Kwale County where majority are footballers.

He added: “We just want to let them know that rugby is a possibility in Coast especially for the young guys that are coming up and they can play it to the highest level.”

Amiani notes that their participation in the Kenya Cup has promoted sports tourism in the region noting that “when we hosted Kabras Sugar all the way from Kakamega county, majority of the people who are in food and hotel business really got some good business. Again, the guys got to tour around and promote local businesses and it's an opportunity also for the guys to tour other parts of the country.”