Stand Up for the Champions.

The BRSS 2012 Champions..The Rhinos.

The various Champions were crowned after what was an epic weekend of championship rugby..salute to the champions in various categories, well in. And to the finalists, I know they say that no one remembers whoever came second, but trust me the guys who played you in the final will forever remember the fight you put up, better luck next time.

So here are those champions for you:

KSSSA 15’s Rugby Champions 2012 – Kakamega High School

Chairman’s Cup Shield Winners 2012 – Catholic University

Chairman’s Cup Bowl Winners 2012 – K.C.B

Chairman’s Cup Plate Winners 2012 – Chipu RFC (Kenya U-19)

Chairman’s Cup Champions 2012 – Nakuru RFC

So it wasn’t a Kakamega vs Mang’u final as I had predicted, it was Maseno instead who made it to the final. The two teams were tied at 10 all when the full time buzzer sounded, before Kakamega scored via Alvin Otieno to complete an impressive double this year as they are also 2012 7’s champions. In the third place play off, Mang’u beat Kangaru 10-3 to claim third spot. Again congratulations to Katch..

In the Chairman’s cup, Catholic University managed to turn the odds table and lift the Shield title by beating the pre match favourites Kenya Polytechnic.

The Bowl final pitted two teams that hail from the greater Thika super highway, KCB having the better of its distant neighbour 24-10 to claim the Bowl title.

KCB Captain Benjamin Ojema poses with the Bowl trophy.

In the plate as I had warned in my pre match preview, watoto wa siku hizi ni wajeuri sana..the Kenya under 19 side Chipu RFC turned on their elders Strathmore narrowly beating them 20-17. Most of the XVII crew have featured in the Kenya U-19 and it was expected that they would hand the young lads a lesson or two...kumbe! Well in to the Chipu, sure that they have picked up valuable lessons from this tournament one’s that they will use in the near future.

In the Main Cup, Nakuru RFC ended their long trophy drought with a win against their Rhinos brothers Quins. The Wanyore dusted off their trophy cabinet in style, beating the Lunch bar Quins 40-26 at the Impala grounds. You could tell that the Wanyore had not had the taste of silver ware in a while when they made their entry into the RFUEA grounds after that win...#TheEnd

To the Highlight of the weekend, match day 5 of the Bamburi Super series. This match day had two games on the cards, first up was the third place play off, with the Lions taking on the Cheetahs then the Rhinos taking on the Rwenzori in the Grand Finale, here is how those matches went:

3^rd Place Play Off:

Cheetahs 22-18 Lions

Final:

Rhinos 25-14 Rwenzori      

In the first game, a changed Lions side narrowly lost out to the Cheetahs, the Lions were without influential captain Dennis Mwanja who suffered a mild concussion in the semi final against the Rhinos and was rested as a precaution, with Collins Injera captain on the day. The Lions were also missing Lavin Asego and Oliver Mangeni, Chris Asego starting at fly half. The Cheetahs maintained more or less the same squad that has played through the series, when the game kicked off the Lions did not look like they missed the above mentioned as they dominated the early exchanges. It was however the Cheetahs who scored first, Lawi Buyachi with the try to give his side a 5-0 lead, with Mose missing his conversion. This score coming after the Cheetahs were denied twice once by the TMO and then by a ‘held up’ call from the ref. The Lions would get back into it via an Ian Indimuli unconverted try to level the scores 5 all, the bigger of the two cats taking the lead into the half courtesy of a Curtis Lilako try at the corner and a Fabian Olando penalty to make it 13-5.

The second half kicked off with the Cheetahs on the driving seat, pinning the Lions in their half, their forwards doing much better than they did the last time these two met. The Cheetahs again just falling short and guilty of missing from penalties, Mose had missed three this far. Then came the moment of the match for me, right after the Lilako try..Duncan Ekasi had broken through the Lions defence with the line at his mercy before Fabian Olando tracked back and tackled the Cheetahs’ backrow at the five yard line managing to rip the ball from Ekasi’s grip all in one motion and saving the Lions’ blushes. Olando could however not repeat his antics as Ronnie Mwenesi narrowed that gap to 13-10, Kola who had taken over the kicking duties making it 13-12 from the conversion. Peter Mutai would ground the ball off a maul to see his side lead 18-12, this was to be the last score for the Lions. The Cheetahs would narrow that gap to one point at 18-17 through another Ronnie Mwenesi try, and then take the lead through Vincent Mose. The Lions would push relentlessly with their efforts coming up just short, the closest they came was a TMO decision which rightfully denied a Patrick Oduong try.

The game thus ended with the scores at 22-18 to the Cheetahs with Ronnie Mwenesi taking home the Man of the match trophy. The Cheetahs had their revenge on the Lions and claimed third spot in the 10^th edition of the Bamburi Super series. Despite losing here and finishing fourth, the Lions had improved on last year’s performance which saw them fail to make it to the semi final, the boys can be proud of their performance this time round.

In the big one, defending champions Rhinos put behind what has been a shaky super series to see off the Rwenzori and claim their 6^th BRSS title, although as it has been their norm in this edition they had to take their fans through several moments of uncertainty.

The Rwenzori had the better of the Rhinos in the opening 20 minutes, Kinene missing two penalties from quite a distance. The Rhinos would find their footing and score through an Eden Agero penalty to make it 3-0, the Rhinos now controlling the game would fail to stretch that lead and were duly punished by none other than that kid Justin Kimono who benefited from great work by Paul Kabazi to score between the posts, Kinene making no mistake in making it 7-3 to the Rwenzori. The Rhinos would however take the lead into the break at 10-7, Tony Mutai with the try and Agero with the conversion after a consistent wave of pressure from his side. During this period the TMO had denied the Rhinos a try from a maul.  

The Second half kicked off in similar fashion to the first (I realise that I use that phrase a lot, but it’s true..)  with the Rwenzori dominating the early exchanges, first being denied by the TMO then finally scoring via Steve Ogwete, Kinene  converting to make it 14-10 to the Rwenzori. The following 15 or so minutes was all Rwenzori, with the Rhinos playing second fiddle to the visitors, Tumusiime doing well to break the Rhinos defence on one occasion but they failed to make this dominance count. The Rhinos would again regroup to score via Dennis Muhanji, the TMO confirming this score to make it 15-14 as the match clock approached the hour mark. From this point the Rhinos never looked back, scoring two quick tries by Wilson K’opondo and veteran Victor Sudi to kill off the game at 25-14.

The Rhinos cementing their position as the most successful franchise in BRSS history as mentioned before this is their 6^th title and 5^th in a row. Chris Oduor of the Rhinos won the man of the match award. The Rwenzori who were playing their first match outside Uganda (Asanta Jopo for the correction) gave a good account of themselves giving the champions a few things to think about, moment of this match for me was the big hit by Victor Sudi on Justin Kimono just after his try...BOOM!!

An interesting stat from the two games concerning the refs, that the Television Match Official (TMO) was consulted a total of 5 times in the two matches. Was it the pace of the game or the fact that the refs were playing it safe? 

Fabian Olando finished as the top points scorer in this year’s series with Wilson K’opondo bagging the most valuable player and top try scorer (5) accolades.

With that the curtains fell on what was a successful 10^th edition of the Bamburi Super Series, the most competitive since the introduction of the new franchises i.e. Rwenzori, Victoria and Bulls in 09. Next year should see a revision of the franchises, pretty sure that they will be looking to make it more competitive. Maybe distribute the big clubs a bit more evenly like give the Buffaloes to Nakuru, Mwamba to the Sharks, take Nondies to the Bulls just to make it more competitive, these are just suggestions off the top of my head. This should even out the playing field and give the best players in the country a chance to showcase their talent while giving the fans a true feast of top quality rugby.

Onto the sevens where the rumours have been doing rounds that the whole team has been disbanded with former England coach Mike Friday set to take over. I am not going to comment on that till a formal announcement is made, till then they will remain just that...rumours. Friday has been due to arrive in the country for the last 2 weeks kwani ni long distance trader ati anakuja akitembea from Sri Lanka? One thing is that we need a post mortem of the squad, disbanding the team is or would be a bit premature to me seeing as it’s been only a season. 

Breaking the team up will mean running the risk of losing all that we have gained in that season and go back to where Benja left us. Are we ready to go through another season like the just concluded one? On the other hand of the scale an international coach may be just the solution we need, someone who comes in with no bias in his or her (gender equality lazima) selection. But the international solution needs time to learn the Kenyan ways and get the team to play according to his/her systems. If we are going to take this route then we need to act now!

Back to the rugby, we now move to the Enterprise and Mwamba Cups next weekend, with the English counties touring Nairobi on 16^th...

With that ladies and gentlemen...have a great and productive week aaannnnndddddd.....

KWISHA...Nimeruka Nje!!!!        

*Walks away singing “Stand up..stand up, for the Champions..for the Champions..for the Champions ”*