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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