Challenge Trophy: Kenya 7s face France in Singapore

Kenya will now play France in Challenge Trophy quarterfinals after their efforts to secure their first main Cup quarterfinals appearance this season at Singapore Sevens proved a cropper on Saturday.

Kenya might have claimed their first victory at the pool stages since the fifth leg at USA Sevens, beating former World champions Wales 19-14 in their last Pool “C” outing, but all was in vain as they finished last.

What condemned Kenya to the Challenge Trophy quarterfinals again in the eighth leg of the 2018/2019 World Sevens Series was the damaging defeats they suffered to England (36-7) and USA (17-14).

USA, who beat England 27-7 in their last outing, topped the pool with the Britons finishing second despite having lost to Wales 12-0 earlier.

France finished third in Pool “B” after they lost to Argentina in their last match as Australia claimed the pool unbeaten with the Pumas finishing second.

Kenya face France at 6.06am while Wales take on Hong Kong at 5.22am on Sunday.

Kenya must aim to finish ahead of Wales and Japan if they hope of avoiding relegation with two legs to go in London and Paris.

Kenya went to Singapore ahead of Japan and Wales in 13th place with 23 points. Japan, who are set to play Canada in the Challenge Trophy quarterfinals, are placed 14th with 20 points while Wales are 15th and in relegation spot with 20 points.

Only one team that will finish 15th will be relegated after this season with Ireland taking up their position for the 2019/20120 Series.

Japan finished third in Pool “D” despite beating Spain 17-5. They had succumbed 43-0 to New Zealand and 57-5 to Samoa.

Vincent Onyala and Oscar Dennis, who are making their debut in the Series gave Kenya a 14-7 half time lead against Wales after Daniel Taabu added the extras. It’s Ryan Conbeer, who had cancelled Onyala’s try to tie at 7-7 before Dennis’ exploits.

Then Taabu, who had scored a brace of tries in their previous match against USA, where they lost 17-14, crossed the line to stretch the lead to 19-7 before Tom Treharne scored for Wales.

Against USA, Kenya took the lead when Taabu waylaid the Americans defence to score and convert.

Carlin Isle would touch down his brace after cashing on Kenya’s sloppy tackles to put USA ahead 12-7 at the break. Then Madison Hughes also easily broke Kenya’s defence line to score and stretch their lead to 17-7. Taabu completed his brace to cut the gap to 17-14 only for the Kenyans to waste a golden chance in the rucks that could have seen them beat USA.

Bush Mwale’s try failed to rescue the Kenyans with missed tackles proving their main Achilles heels to soak in six tries against England in their opening duel.

In the main Cup, South Africa face Samoa (6.30am), USA meet Argentina (6.52am), New Zealand take on Fiji (7.14am) while Australia are up against England (7.36am).