How Cranes nearly caused an upset in Nairobi

A penalty try awarded by the French referee Laurent Cardona saved Kenya Simbas from home annihilation by a charged and inspired Uganda Rugby Cranes as the return leg of Elgon Cup match ended in a 33-33 draw at the RFUEA Grounds in Nairobi on Saturday afternoon.

The Kenya Simbas were out of their depth and spent large parts of the game trailing a vastly improved Cranes team coached by John Duncan, seconded to Uganda from Free State Cheetahs, South Africa.

So how did a team that Kenya used to comprehensively beat turn up and threaten to embarrass them at home?

The first factor was the brilliant and magnificent Ivan Magomu. Magomu was a constant thorn in the Kenyan defence with his incessant kicks that ensured that Simbas back three rarely ventured out of their half.

His famed sidestep left a bamboozled Peter Karia on the ground as he combined beautifully for Uganda’s second try scored by Michael Wokorach.

Magomu and Wokorach had telepathic connection and had earlier combined beautifully to set up the opening try by Charles Uhuru.

Magomu was outshone Isaac Adimo, his opposite flyhalf, with his willingness to bring in runners into the game and always knew when to pass or when to kick.

Magomu was my man-of -the -match, an accolade that went to full back Philip Wokorach for the second year running.

Uganda Cranes dominated the midfield play and almost shut out the Kenyan attack through the centre. In Pius Ogena and Michael Wokorach, Duncan had chosen his two best tacklers to neutralise the Kenyan razor sharp backline.

Ogena put in huge tackles with one getting Jacob Ojee in midflight, almost knocking him out. In attack Wokorach was moving from outside to inside centre feeding off Magomu’s creativity.

The Kenyan backline was kept quiet, as it had been in Kampala a fortnight ago.

The third reason as to why Cranes had an upper hand on Saturday was the disjointed Kenyan defense.

Two of Uganda’s three tries were scored from broken play. The first one Wokoarach cut through a half-hearted Kenyan defence like a hot knife through butter, before offloading to Magomu who set up Uhuru.

The defence that Kenyan coach Jerome Paarwaters had praised two weeks ago was missing. Simbas were missing tackles with Eric Kerre once again found wanting at his new position at blindside flanker.

Finally, Kenya Simbas lack of depth or more like of quality depth has been exposed. The feared backrow trio of Michael Okombe, Brian Nyikuli and Lawi Buyanchi has been replaced by Joshua Chisanga, Davis Chenge and Erick Kerre.

As much as Chisanga and Chenge are natural backrowers, Kerre is still struggling to fit into his new role and his naivety has been exposed and exploited first by the Germans and now the Ugandans.

It’s no secret that Paarwaters loves tall and menacing backrowers, hence his reason for converting Kerre and Kabras Sugar’s George Nyambua from lock to backrow.

This conversion has meant that a number of natural backrows like Steve Otieno, Edwin Machanje and Elkeans Musonye continue to sit out of Test matches as Simbas use locks in their positions.