Collins Injera in action against France at Singapore Sevens 2016, HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series. PHOTO/ Martin Seras Lima
NAIROBI, April 17 – The Kenya 7s team are through to the Singapore tournament Main Cup semi-final after rallying from a try down to wallop France 28 -7 in the Eighth round of the HSBC Sevens World Series at the new look National Stadium on Sunday.
A well composed Shujaa scored four tries with Sammy Oliech doing well to kick all the conversions through to enable the Benjamin Ayimba side end a poor run against France and reach their second Cup semis this season, having lost in the third place play off in Cape Town 7s.
Shujaa will now face Argentina in the second semi-final at 11:50am while South Africa while defending Singapore 7s champions Fiji will take on South Africa.
Kenya have lost four times to France this season ( 7 – 33 at Dubai Bowl semi, 28 – 26 at Cape Town third place play off, 21 – 24 at Vancouver Bowl quarters and 17 – 10 at Hong Kong pool match).
Coming into to clash as underdogs, Shujaa gifted France the early opener when Jeremy Aicardi picked up a spilt pass to scoot home from 40 metres out with just over two minutes in the encounter to hand Kenya a sloppy start.
Oscar Ayodi overcame Scotland nightmare as he firmly planted the ball down over the line, helping to erase the memory of his embarrassing blunder that saw Kenya drew 12-12 with the Scots.
Veteran Humphrey Kayange showed his prowess when he intercepted Virimi Vakatawa’s speculative offload inside to follow Ayodi over the whitewash and double the scores.
It was all Kenya at the start of the second half as Collins Injera and his elder brother Kayange came close but it was Willy Ambaka who got there though at the third time of asking after France conceded another penalty close to their own line.
Kenya ran up 28 unanswered points when skipper Andrew Amonde took quick lineout ball and power over from 20 metres out.
France were denied a consolation try at the death when Arthur Bonneval was penalised for pushing Samuel Montari off the ball in the build-up to his score.
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