BREAKDOWN: With ministry floundering on school games, time for KRU to focus on age grade rugby

The recent developments by Ministry of Education regarding school games has left many federations, associations and unions that depend on the school system for talent development exposed and in need of quick remedy.

For starters, the ministry sent out a circular in January with a raft of changes on schools games calendar with major change being the lumping of sevens and fifteens rugby together as well as slashing the number of players per team in these disciplines. The other changes were the scrapping off of decathlon and heptathlon from school games calendar.

The ministry has also strongly advised Kenya Secondary Schools Association to hold their activities and any other ceremonies alongside special needs education (SNE) at the same time and venue.

These are some of the highlights of the circular sent to county and regional education officials directing them to effect the changes as soon as possible.

I will not talk about other disciplines as I’m not well versed with their process but today I will focus on rugby.

Most club coaches have depended on school games to spot their next stars and even national under-20 coach Paul Odera has invited outstanding individuals from these meets to join Chipu, the under-20 national side.

With the direction the ministry is heading, co-curricular activities are fast becoming an AOB in school calendar with little emphasis on quality and skills. The game are being treated as a nuisance and the ministry honchos are impatiently lumping them together and slotting them in first term so as to be done and get away withthem at the earliest opportunity.

So what does leave Kenya rugby clubs that have depended on the steady treadjhjhjhjh that has continued to churn talented individuals year in year out? How will we as country continue to develop and train skilled players to compete both at Barthes Cup (Africa Under 20) and at senior level? How about girls? Where will the coaches identify girls that can be future Kenya Lionesses players?

For girls, KSSA resisted any attempt by Kenya Rugby Union to introduce the games in their calendars and clubs have had to depend on community rugby programmes run in various parts of the country to introduce the game to girls at grassroots level. But is that enough? We need a programme where we shall have competive age grade girls rugby across the country. Many talented girls in areas like Kakamega, Bungoma, Kisii and Nyeri have nowhere to play this game.

I would like to laud Kisumu Rugby’s Rita Onyango who has spearheaded the formation of a women’s rugby team in Kisumu. The response has been immense and we have seen what those girls are capable of at the first leg of Kenya Rugby Women’s Festival held two weekends ago at Kenyata University grounds. We need more of search initiatives across the country.

For the boys, any competitive age grade rugby is virtually non-existent outside of school games system. Apart from Comras, Shamas Foundation, Impala and previously at Stanbic Mwamba, young boys aged between 10-16 years have little options available for them if they want to play rugby.

It is high time KRU organized regular age grade tournament during school holidays to have these kids familiarize with the sport at an early age. These games can be interclubs, which will mean clubs forming age grade units within their ranks, or community based such as Shamas, Mombasa, Nanyuki, Comras, Maono and Ngong. These tournaments can be devolved to various sub-union levels culminating into a grand rugby festival week at rotating venue a la Craven Week in South Africa.

The various KRU sub-unions can select teams from their regional tournaments or the teams can be modelled along pre-devolution provinces and we are bound to see high quality and all inclusive age grade rugby in the country that will comfortably replace the fading vaunted schools games. National junior team coaches will have it easy in selecting their players instead of holding a day-long trials that attracts hundreds of kids with limited time to show the panel what they are capable of.

We have seen football clubs use various age grade tournaments like Chapa Dimba, Airtel Rising Stars and the recently concluded Copa Coca Cola tournament to identify, nurture and develop the next generation of stars. It’s about KRU embraced age grade rugby to help in talent identification and development at an early age.

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