Unheralded Kitui School fire early warning shots in rugby

New Kitui High School rugby coach Patrick Mwika has set his sight firmly on qualifying his rugby 15s team to the Eastern regional finals after impressive showing in the lower tier competitions in the ongoing secondary school games

Kitui have been a cut above the rest in the ongoing Kitui County rugby 15s games, recording high score wins leaving their opponents in their trail, and Mwika says the team will only get better with time.

Mwika will be keen to bag the county level title on Thursday when his team clash with Gai Secondary School in the final at Nguutani Secondary School in Mwingi West, Kitui County.

They eliminated defending champions Katheka Boys in the semi finals while Gai Secondary School saw off Kisasi Boys in the other last four encounter.

“Kitui currently they are doing good but for the last two years the team has been performing poorly and they’ve not made it past the sub county level but this year the skill has gone up and the results are better thanks to the training sessions that we’ve had with them.”

The seasoned school sport coach says he has had to overhaul the whole system at the school, noting the crucial support from the school management as key to their resurgence.

“With the support from the administration and the training sessions; you know previously the boys didn’t have a coach and they were training themselves. But for now they have a coach, the boys have been given time to train, the principle is also offering them special diet, the boys are training from Monday to Sunday and the form fours have not been restricted as it was the case before so I think those are the things that have made Kitui school improve.”

Despite the improvement noted in the Kitui School rugby team, Mwika who also doubles as the Central region rugby development officer for the Kenya Rugby Union acknowledges there is more work to be done to improve the skill of players in other local teams.

“When you look at most of the games being played at the county level, most of the matches just end via penalties. Most of the teams here have ball handling problems and the ball knowledge is so low. So we will have to up the training clinics to help raise the level of rugby here in Kitui.”

Kitui School dismantled Kyanika and Yumbisye secondary schools 32- 0 and 24-0 respectively in the preliminary rounds, before putting on a spotless performance in the quarter finals to punish Nzakame secondary school 48-0.