A terrible weekend for Uganda Sports fans as Kenya destroyed Uganda in 3 separate games in the same weekend.

The Rugby Cranes and Rugby Lady Cranes were both in Kisumu, Kenya for the Elgon Cup and they lost 20:13 and 87:3 respectively.

The onus was on the Uganda Generals, who were hosting the Kenya White Rhinos at Legends Rugby Grounds, to get the much needed revenge and the last laugh.

On the other hand, the Kenyans had other ideas as they wanted to add more insult to the injuries that Ugandans were nursinng from the day before.

Uganda Generals came into the game with high hopes after having had multiple camps and training sessions, the last sessions being conducted by Americans William Cotter aka Billy and Stuart Zackary.

The 2 joined coaching staff that consists Shudais Mpanga (Head Coach), Martin Omala (Defense Coordinator) and Abel Bangi (Offense Coordinator) and were helping in giving a few tactics for the game.

The game started an hour late following a heavy down pour had interrupted the proceeding, leaving the playing surface in a cringing state.

Kenya started strongly on the defensive end, they manged to fizzle out Uganda’s offense who couldn’t find any gap to run through.

When the Kenya offense came on, they looked so sharp and the running back Ramadhan Nanjove managed to break through on their second down to score the first touch down of the game.

Kenya opted for a 2 point play, and the quarter back Moses Waweru managed to score a conversion to make it 8:0.

The game experienced a lot of stoppages thereafter and both teams seemed to stabilize both offensively and defensively for the remainder of the first half.

Uganda Generals came out stronger than ever defensively and they managed to wither Kenya’s offense.

When their offense came on, they continued with the same spirit gaining about 20 meters until an unfortunate incident happened.

Uganda offense somehow fumbled the ball and it fell in the hands of Ramadhan Nanjove who waved his opponents goodbye to rush and score the second touch down of the game.

There were a lot of challenges in the game, the first being the weather which caused the pitch to become very bad. Both teams couldn’t fully execute their plays and they had to resort to improvising.

The officiation was also not top notch given the lack of officials. Their was only a single Referee (Donald Juma) and he couldn’t see everything that was going on during the game. Credit to him though for stepping up when called upon despite the challenging conditions.

The Kenya Coach Head Coach Odhier Derrick was super impressed with his team’s performance. “We did what we usually do, come to this ground and beat Uganda” he said.

Uganda has made massive steps in the growth of the game and Kenya Captain was impressed about what he saw from them. “Basing on the way we played them last time, they have improved tremendously”

Uganda Generals shall be traveling to Nairobi, Kenya for the return leg of the Africa Zone Series and the winner will be qualifying for the World Championship which shall be happening in August 2024 in Finland.

📸 All photos Kamau Toni