Nairobi — Shujaa marked a six-point improvement at the Singapore Sevens this weekend, where they picked seven points after a 10th place finish, but it was still not enough to hoist them off the relegation zone.
The Kenya Sevens boys improved from the single point they picked from Hong Kong last weekend where they failed to win a single match.
They are still however perched at 13th in the standings with 37 points, 11 behind Spain, who beat them in the ninth place final in Singapore.
Against Spain, Nicolas Nieto and Jaimie Mata’s twin tries, both converted by the latter had given Spain a 14-0 lead, before Alvin ‘Buffa’ Otieno drew one back with his 50th career try for Shujaa.
After the break, Manu Morena’s try converted by Mata and Alejandro Laforgo’s fourth for Spain put them in the steering wheel and not even Edmund Anya’s try two minutes to time could engineer a comeback.
Shujaa had dropped to the ninth place play-off after losing all their pool matches. They had gone down 26-19 to France in their Pool C opener before losing narrowly 21-19 to USA in their second match. They were then beaten 33-17 by Uruguay.
They however redeemed themselves in the ninth place play-off when they beat Canada 28-14 in the quarter finals and then thrashing Japan 40-7 in the semis.
The next leg of the series will be in Toulouse, France, on May 12-14. This leg will be pivotal for Shujaa. They need to finish above 12th place to avoid the threat of playing the relegation play off.
However, they need to dig deep as they are 12 points away from 11th spot, currently occupied by Uruguay.
For the relegation criteria, the team ranked 15th at the end of the Toulouse leg, currently Japan, will be automatically relegated.
The teams ranked 12th, 13th and 14th at the end of Toulouse (Currently Spain, Kenya and Canada) will enter a four-team relegation play-off together with the Challenger Series 2023 winners heading into the 11th and final round of the Series in London.
The matches will be played on round robin format and the top two will play a final, with the winner surviving the chop while the other three are relegated.
