The rugby 15s seasons is around the corner and most teams are in pre-season mood.
The annual Floodlit tournament is less two weeks away and KCB is currently in South Africa for pre-season training.
Being the Floodlit defending champions, few teams are expected to offer KCB a serious challenge with the domination they have exhibited in the longer version of the game.
One wonders when Kabras Sugar will start making appearances in the event as they seem to be the most serious challengers to KCB and their participation will also give the Floodlit a truly national outlook as opposed to a tournament for Nairobi-based teams only.
Impala being the host will be expected to go one better and clinch the trophy but KCB has proven to be their boogey team for quite a long time.
Still on the 15s rugby scene, the varsity league was recently launched where the top eight universities will compete from two pools of four teams each with the finals being held at the RFUEA grounds.
The idea is long overdue for development of the talent pool that exists in our universities where they can compete with their peers on equal terms rather than facing established and professional teams and getting mauled with embarrassing cricket scores.
It is my hope that corporates can step in and provide the much-needed commercial muscle and publicity for the league as this might be the future of Kenyan rugby.
The Varsity Cup in South Africa is a well-organized, entertaining competition where players have stepped up to represent Super Rugby teams and in due time with good management and resources, our infant league will be a jewel and we might even export a few teams to battle it out in the South African Varsity Cup as an invitational team.
Finally, a provisional sevens team has been selected with the top performers in the just concluded Stanbic national sevens circuit making the cut, including the usual suspects that have been on the Shujaa team.
The technical bench is still being selected by the board and Paul Murunga seems to be the front runner.
It will be interesting to see who among the provisional squad makes the final squad but I do get the feeling that it is time to cull the old heads.
Some of the seasoned players have been in the set up for over a decade and it’s time to go for a new cycle of players than going for past reputations.
The risk is that our performance might drop initially but with time we will mature and get to our usual high standards rather than retaining fossils and stale ideas.
Some of these players have been in the national team longer than the constitutionally allowed presidential term limit.
Unless we pull an Arab revolution on them they might stay longer than Museveni but let whoever are chosen play their hearts out.
The board should also behave professionally and end the circus than has been plaguing this beautiful game of ours.
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