NAIROBI, Kenya, July 14 – National 15s coach Michael Otieno believes mistakes cost his team victory over Morocco last Saturday.
Otieno who is into his third season as Kenya coach said that defensive blunders were the bane of his side that lost 29-11 to the home team and that his side need to play more matches in order to develop.
“I’m very happy with the way the team performed. What we need is similar tournaments to develop the team,” said Otieno.
“What we need to work on before the Elgon Cup is our one on one defence. What the players have to learn is to go low when tackling,” he added.
The former Kenya fullback said that his team also failed to take advantage of its scoring opportunities.
“Our backs kept on breaking the Morrocan defence but most of the time there was no supporting player to score,” said Otieno.
“They also slowed down our ball which made it difficult to get out to the backs which means that we have to work on our conditioning,” he added.
Otieno was delighted with the way his team responded to the conditions saying that it bodes well for their away form in future.
“It was very hot but the players took it in their stride. They did not complain about the food or the weather and they adopted to the culture of the country which is very important,” he added after his team’s arrival from the North African country on Monday.
“These team is going places. What we need now is more matches especially against Namibia and Zimbabwe and we’ll be up there with the best.
Kenya captain Innocent Simiyu rued his team’s missed chances and the way they gave our points cheaply.
“We gave away two easy tries earlier on. We also had two try scoring opportunities which we fumbled at the try line which was painful but such is life,” said Simiyu.
The team will reassemble to prepare for the defence of the Elgon Cup against Uganda to be played next month.
