The Kenya Sevens National Team popularly known as ‘Shujaa’, bowed out of the 2021/2022 HSBC Sevens World Series held in Los Angeles, United States of America (US) after finishing sixth overall.
Shujaa finished in twelfth place after finishing sixth overall at the season ending Los Angeles (LA) 7s at the Dignity Health Park in LA on Monday morning.
The national team, which is coached by Damian McGrath now shifts focus to the Rugby World Cup Sevens to be held in South Africa.
The McGrath men collected 12 points to finish the season on 49 points after losing 29-7 to Argentina in the fifth place final.
Tony Omondi scored and converted the team’s sole try in an encounter that saw the Argentines score five tries through Mathias Osadsczuk (2), Tomas Lizazu (2) and Franco Sabato while Tobias Wade added two conversions.
“We’re safely back home after the final round of the series in Los Angeles where we reached the cup quarters. Our next assignment is the Rugby World Cup 7s from 9-11 September in Cape Town, South Africa,” Shujaa posted on their timelines.
New Zealand beat Fiji 28-21 to win the main cup title while Australia were crowned winners of the 2021/22 season after beating Samoa 21-7 in their bronze match.
This was Australia’s inaugural overall win.
South Africa who won the opening four legs finished in second position with 124 points two adrift of champions Australia.
Fiji, Argentina and Ireland were placed third and fifth place respectively in the just concluded series.
On their way to qualifying for the World Cup, Shujaa had to relinquish their Africa 7s title, but did just but enough to earn qualification to the Rugby Sevens World Cup after beating Zambia 19-12 in the third place play-off in Kampala.
Shujaa had dropped off the title race after losing to Uganda in the semi-finals, but they wrote off a few wrongs with the Zambia victory to earn their sixth qualification to the World Cup, set to be staged in South Africa in September.
Debutant Amon Wamalwa landed a brace of tries for Shujaa against Zambia while Augustine Lugonzo crossed over once and Tony Omondi slicing the posts for conversions in two of the three tries.