NAIROBI, Kenya, May 22, 2026 – National men’s rugby 7s head coach Kevin ‘Bling’ Wambua has named a 13-man squad ahead of the remaining two legs of the World Rugby Championships in Valladolid and Bordeaux.
It is a largely unchanged side from the one that did duty at last month’s first leg in Hong Kong, save for the return of Chrisant Ojwang’, who missed out due to injury.
KCB Rugby’s Floyd Wabwire and youngster Gabriel Ayimba will, however, miss out on the trip to Spain and France, having featured in the last leg.
The team will be co-captained by George Ooro and his KCB Rugby teammate, Samuel Asati.
Nygel Amaitsa, John Okoth, Denis Abukuse and Festus Shiasi are among names to watch for in the squad following their A-grade performances in Hong Kong.
Wambua will be expecting more of the same from the quartet as will be the case for other experienced members of the squad including Vincent Onyala, Samuel Asati and speedster Patrick Odongo, among others.
Shujaa’s mission is to do better than their seventh-placed finish in Hong Kong where they wrapped up a largely disappointing outing with a 21-7 win over France.
They began with a narrow 14-5 loss to Australia in their Pool C encounter, before losing 28-12 to the All Blacks of New Zealand.
However, they redeemed themselves with a 17-10 victory in their last encounter but then fell narrowly short in the main cup quarterfinals, losing 26-22.
The second leg of the series is set for May 29-30 in Valladolid.
Shujaa kickstart their campaign against Australia in Pool A on Friday afternoon (1:12 pm) before facing South Africa in the evening (6:08 pm).
Their final pool encounter is against Great Britain on Saturday (2:01 pm).
An overall top eight finish for Shujaa will guarantee qualification to Division 1 of the World Rugby Series whereas anything less than that condemns them back to Division 2.
