Kenya Secondary Schools Sports Association are adamant that rugby 7’s and 15’s will be played in the Term One despite pressure from the stakeholders.
The two have been featuring separately with Rugby 7’s being held in Term 2A and 15’s running in Term 1. According to a co-curricular activities calendar of events released by the Ministry of Education, the two were merged and the development hasn’t gone down well with stakeholders.
Besides rugby 7’s, handball, Athletics were also moved to Term 1 and will be played alongside basketball, hockey and swimming during Term 1 games at the Shimo la Tewa and Shanzu Teaching College on April 9-13 in Mombasa County.
Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) age grade and women’s rugby coordinator Nick Aballa is on record haviing faulted the ministry over the move, saying it will affect the development of the game in the country. However, KSSSA secretary general, David Ngugi, said they can’t go against the ministry’s plans and things will run as per the latest circular. He said the buck stops with the respective schools to choose whether to field teams either 7s or 15’s or both.
“Really, there is little we can do as far as the changes are concerned. As always, people are not ready to embrace the changes but it it’s upon the respective schools to decide what they will do going forward. However, thinking that we are going to look into the development and change it will be a lie. We at KSSSA have embraced the changes and would like to see how the development will pan out going forward,” noted Ngugi.
He added: “We also have the Copa Coca Cola secondary schools U-16 football tourney and the normal football and we have not had complains. Schools have been able to plan and participate in both and therefore I don’t see any difference with the 15’s and 7’s.”