The Kenya sevens team Shujaa and Lionesses on Friday ended their Emirates Invitational 7s campaign in fifth and sixth places respectively after two days of intense rugby fixtures.
Despite an impressive run by the men's side Shujaa in their day 1 fixtures where they ran unbeaten, the Kenyans bowed out of the tournament at the quarter finals stage after falling 3 points short in their 13 -15 loss to Chile.
They then dropped to the plate semi finals in their second match of the day where they got a chance to redeem themselves in a 27-15 win against spain before sailing their way through to the Plate Finals against their East African neighbours Uganda.Kenya thrashed the Cranes 36-5 in the last game of the tournament to seal 5th position in the tournament.
Shujaa head coach in a post match interview stated that ``it was quite unfortunate how the team executed their plays against Chile where they had small simple and unforced errors in the game which proved to be costly in their quarter finals but it was very good how the boys responded in their last two games against spain and Uganda'' head coach innocent Simiyu said.
The Lionesses on the other end wrapped up their day 2 fixture after losing all 3 matches with the first on being a tight fixture against Brazil where the Kenyans lost 15 -12. The second match saw the ladies face off USA and they again lost 22-10 .In their last game of the day Lionesses were thrashed 43 -0 in a match against Japan.
Despite the losses Lionesses head coach Felix Oloo commended the ladies on some improvements over the past 2 weeks in Dubai as they put up a much better fight and showcased the hunger to win as compared to how they performed in Madrid 7s.
The two teams are expected to be back in the country today at 1.35pm. Shujaa will be expected to resume training camp on 18th of April as they look forward to putting in a performance in their next course which will be the invitational 7s in South Africa.
Shujaa Day Two Collated results.
Cup QF: Chile 14 – Shujaa 12
Plate SF: Shujaa 27 – Spain 15
Plate Final: Shujaa 36 – Uganda 5
Lionesses Day two Collated results.
Lionesses 12 – Brazil 15
USA 22 – Lionesses 10
Japan 43 – Lionesses 0