Nigeria’s Black Stallions were eight placed at The Rugby Africa Men’s Sevens Olympic Qualifiers at the Barnard Stadium in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, on Sunday.
Speaking from their Southern Sun hotel in Johannesburg, Coach Fabian Juries says 5 players picked up series of injuries and knocks and it affected the team’s overall performance. Our captain; Azeez Ladipo injured his shoulder in the early minutes of the first game and we had to manage him through some matches. Nuhu Samaila, Ike Onwukanjo, Onyinye Onwukanjo, Hafis Ayinla; were also injured leaving us with just one substitute in the last two games.
Fabian Juries further explained that the team improved from last year’s outing where they placed eleventh and says there is room for more improvement. “We set a quarter final target and the boys met it but going forward, we need to work on strength and conditioning of the team and ensure they play together in more tournaments”. Kenya and Zimbabwe invest a lot in their team’s strength and conditioning and it was evident in their performance. However, if you watch the Nigeria vs Zimbabwe match, you wouldn’t notice much difference as we completely matched their game. Strength and Conditioning requires a bigger budget moving forward.
The Rugby Africa Men’s Sevens Olympic Qualifier ended in a thrilling final between Kenya and Zimbabwe with Kenya nicking scoring the winning try at the sound of the hooter.
Kenya Sevens will now represent the African continent at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games along with the Springbok Sevens, who qualified for the showpiece by finishing second on the log table at the conclusion of the 2014/2015 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, also, Zimbabwe, Morocco and Tunisia will stand a chance to qualifier as they automatically qualified for the repechage scheduled to hold in Monaco, France Next year.
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