Shujaa face Uganda at 12:50 pm in a mouth-watering Sevens clash at the Coventry Stadium as the Commonwealth Games rugby program gets underway today.
The two sides clashed at the Africa Cup Sevens semifinals in April in Kampala with the Ugandans coming out victors 22-12 en route to winning the competition.
Shujaa face Jamaica next at 8:58 pm and wind up their preliminary fixtures against one of the tournament favourites, Australia at 12:50 pm on Saturday.
Since the last meeting against the Ugandans, Kenya have appointed a new English coach Damian McGrath and for the last five weeks, he has focused on instilling confidence, upscaling their skills and improving their fitness and conditioning for the event.
The team arrived in Birmingham on Monday and had two training sessions. Coach McGrath has termed the match against Uganda a final.
"It's a huge game with bragging rights for the winner. We know they are a good team but our preparations for the last five weeks have been good and we can't wait for the game and atone for the errors which were there in our last meeting,” he added.
The Englishman said the players have set a target of qualification to the quarterfinals. “We are looking to get to the knockout and so we will take one game at a time. There are no easy games at this level but I am confident in the boys,” he added.
McGrath said they are using the Commonwealth Games as the foundation for future international assignments like the World Sevens Series and the World Cup in September in Cape, Town South Africa.
"There is more to come from these players and this tournament provides a good platform for us to test our systems and see what the future holds for us.”
Shujaa are yet to go past the quarterfinals of the Commonwealth Games with their best performances coming in 2010 in New Delhi in India and Glasgow in 2014. On both occasions, Shujaa lost to Australia and New Zealand.
At the last edition in 2018, Shujaa missed the automatic spot to the semis with only one team qualifying for the semis. Shujaa beat Zambia 47-0 and Canada 26-10 before losing to gold medallists New Zealand 40-7 to bow out.
