KRU axe national circuit winners Quins from Safaricom Sevens

NATIONAL Sevens circuit winners Quins have been axed from the Safaricom Sevens tournament. Quins have been replaced by a second string Uganda outfit team for the three-day tournament planned for this weekend.  An angry Quins chairman Edward Kinyany read mischief in the move to drop them from the prestigious show and he is breathing fire.

“We are reading mischief from this move because the Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) chairman Mwangi Muthee had said the team that wins the circuit goes on to represent the country in the tournament. Why have they decided to shift goalposts now after we have won the circuit,” asked Kinyany.

Quins clinched the circuit over the weekend despite losing the Driftwood Sevens final 17-10 to KCB in Mombasa. The Ngong Road outfit won the series after settling for Christie, Dala and George Kabeberi Sevens Kinyany said the club’s academy players will be disappointed to miss out on the Safaricom Sevens tournament after playing their hearts out in the five-leg series which concluded last weekend in Mombasa.

“This is a very bad sign from the union. We have raised our young boys from the academy to play in the circuit and won it. So denying them a chance to play in the Sevens is a sign of bad faith on that part of the union,” added Kinyany. Mwamba, who were last year’s winners of the circuit, were given a chance to grace the Safaricom Sevens. Kinyany accused the union of having an ulterior motive in denying them a chance to play in the Safaricom Sevens .

“I strongly believe if another team had won the circuit, they would have played in the Sevens. I  am now convinced that the union has a grind to axe with Quins over various issues that have happened in the past couple of months, but this isn’t the right way to handle issues,” added Kinyany.

Muthee, however, dismissed Kinyany’s allegations, saying there is a policy change. “We have changed the policy and there is no guarantee that the team that wins the circuit plays at the Safaricom Sevens. We also want to see other teams taking part in the Safaricom Sevens and Quins should not feel offended for not being part of the show,” he added.

Muthee said Kenya will be represented by three teams including Kenya, Shujaa and Chairman XI. The KRU boss Muthee said they also want to expose players in the Chairman XI to the tournament with a view of building up on their future,” he said. 

“We want to expose players to high octane rugby and that is why we are giving them a chance to play at the highest level,” he said.
Elsewhere, International Rugby Board (IRB) have made changes to the seeding system of the Sevens series starting next month at the Gold Coast in Australia.

From the start of the new season, the winner of the 3rd/4th ‘bronze medal’ match at each round of the series will be placed top of Pool ‘C’ for the subsequent round. Previously, the only teams to gain automatic placing into pools for the next event were the Cup winner (top of Pool ‘A’) and runners-up (top of Pool ‘B’).