Coach Magona blames team for Elgon Cup humiliation

By Johnson Were

Men
Kenya 34 Uganda 0
Women
Kenya 39 Uganda 10
U-19
Kenya 27 Uganda 12

NAIROBI - Uganda Rugby Cranes head coach Peter Magona has attributed the humiliating defeat of the senior men's team to their failure to stick to the game plan as worked out during training.

“I have run short of words and I don’t know what to say but to sum up it that the boys didn’t come. Even the drift and run plans we corrected they could not execute,” a clearly disappointed Magona said while consolingly sipping away on a beer.

The national rugby teams suffered humiliating defeats in the Elgon Cup return leg on Saturday and return home empty-handed.

In the earlier game, the U-19 were hit 12-27 by Kenya before the Lady Cranes were smashed 39-10 and finally the men being whipped 34-0 in front of the over three hundred Ugandan fans that had turned up for the game.

The contingent of Ugandan fans that witnessed the massacre

Eden Agero, Jacob Jee, Nato Simiyu shared the six tries and Isaac Adimo made the conversions.

For the Lady Rugby Cranes, it was a true indication of lack of enough training and unfitness that put up a good show in the first half only to break down in the second and succumb to their free running Kenyan Lionesses that made a joke out of them.

Unlike the Lionesses, their Ugandan counterparts could hardly contain possession every time they were tackled.

The writing was all on the wall . . . for everyone to see

The U-19 team put up a good show having all chances of winning the game but lacked self-confidence which resulted in them conceding unnecessary tries.

The team had poor tackling and kicked ball to the opponent’s advantage, allowing them the all-important possession which they utilized.

The games also exposed the Ugandan sides that lacked body conditioning to overcome the hard tackles by Kenyans.