The Kenya Cup Season at a glance

by Anthony "Junior" Ochino

The 15s rugby season has been exciting if anything especially for fans and players of KCB RFC
The Lions started the season by winning the Impala Floodlit Trophy and followed that up by winning the Kenya Cup for the third successive year before putting the icing on the cake by lifting the Enterprise Cup, a trophy that had eluded the team since 2004.
The following are a few facts regarding the Kenya Cup league 2007:

In lifting the Kenya Cup KCB played 14 matches, won 11 and lost 3.
In those matches the Lions managed to score 43 tries and conceded 11. In only 1 match did the team fail to score a try. That was the 7-6 loss to Nakuru RFC at the latter’s backyard.

Except against Mwamba,KCB either failed to concede a try or only conceded 1 in each game a trend that continued throughout the Kenya Cup season till Mwamba crossed the line 6 times in pippin the Lions 36-35 at the den. Mwamba had exposed a glaring weakness and everyone waited to see how the Lions would respond. The Lions however recovered superbly in their next match scoring six unanswered tries in beating Nondies who could only manage two penalties.

Over the two legs Mombasa and Impala failed to cross the lions try line while Nondies, Harlequins and Nakuru managed 1 try each. Machine scored two, one in each leg while Mwamba’s six was the worst defensive performance by the Lions.
Nondies conceded the most tries to the lions letting in 9, followed by Impala and Mombasa who let in 8 each. Mwamba and Machine conceded 7 each while Quins and Nakuru kept the Lions at bay only conceding two tries apiece to the Lions.
In the three loses, two were by a point each to Mwamba and Nakuru who beat the lions 36-35 and 7-6 respectively. The Lions lost 10-7 to Kenya Harlequin.

Another interesting fact in the lions losses was that in each of the three games they had two yellow cards and the games were all refereed by one ref, Godwin Karuga.
In the first loss Arnold Odera and Anthony Ogot were sent to the sin bin within minutes of each other allowing Nakuru to score a try off a quick penalty. Against Quins Anthony Ochino and Howard Okwemba were sent off in the fist and second half respectively. It was while Howard was off that Quins scored their winning try. Against Mwamba it was while Anthony Ogot and Peter Mutai were cooling their heels in the bin that Lions suffered their own version of “six minutes of hell” a phrase many AC Milan fans are familiar with.
They say becoming number one is easier than maintaining number one. I totally agree but for now the bragging rights belong to KCB RFC'S ‘Lions'.
There are three kinds of rugby players: those who make it happen,those who watch what happened and those who wonder what happened.
Which one are you?


Coming soon...a review of the Eric Shirley Shield season