The Kenya Sevens team will grace an international tournament in Los Angeles, USA this year.
The tournament is by invitation and Chairman Mwangi Muthee said the team have confirmed their participation for the event which will be played in Los Angeles, California.
The tournament dubbed Grand Prix Rugby championship will have a prize purse of $1million dollars (Sh86m) and will be played between July 12-14.
The tournament is to popularise rugby in the US. Mwangi said they will end a strong team, despite the World Cup Sevens being played two weeks earlier in Moscow.
“Yes we know we will be playing in the Sevens World Cup in Russia, but the depth in the country is good and we will be sending a team to the tournament in Los Angeles,” added Mwangi.
Mwangi was impressed with the team’s performance at the stage of the season and expected the team to be strong contenders in the remaining legs of the IRB series.
“We have done fairly well in the series so far. We can only get better and I’m expecting us to be competitive in the Wellington and Las Vegas legs in February next year,” Muthee said.
He confirmed they are working on player availability to ensure Kenya have itheir best players for the remaining legs starting with Wellington.
“We suffered a bit in South Africa without some key players but its something the union is working on to ensure our best players are available for selection,” added Muthee.
Kenya sevens coach Mike Friday has earlier in the week said lack of key players in South Africa may have cost Kenya more points in the third leg in Port Elizabeth
The team resumed training last week and assitant coach Felix Ochieng said he was confident that the team wil bounce back despite the disappointment over being relegated to the bowl category We have a favaorable pool for New Zealand leg and if we can correct our defensive frailties then we can bounce back and upset some if the big sides in the tournament.
Source:The Star
