Will Duncan stay as coach?

By Johnson Were

AFTER winning the Rugby Africa 1B, Uganda do not have a reason to change their makeup.

Except they do, as coach John Duncan will almost certainly return to his permanent position as director of rugby at Cheetahs Rugby Club in South Africa.

Duncan has grown fond of his work with the Cranes and would not mind leading Uganda at next year’s 1A engangement. Problem is, it may not be feasible to keep in the Cranes role when he has to return home, as the understanding between Cheetahs and the Uganda Rugby Union (URU).

“Yes I would love to continue with the boys but I have my full time job to do as Director of rugby at Queens’ College but continuing with a team on part time basis will depend on the union and Cheetahs,” Duncan stated. 

URU secretary Godwin Kayangwe when contacted said that the future of Duncan with the team will depend on the new understanding with Cheetahs club.

“We want Duncan to stay but we have to discuss that with Cheetahs whom we have a partnership with because we don’t have the financial capacity to pay him,” Kayangwe stated.

“At the moment we are depending on a partnership that foots the bigger percentage of the bill and later we foot just upkeep of the coach,” he added.

Kayangwe also explained that as a union they have plans of pooling resources to have a conditioning and high performance program for the players. 

“Whether Duncan is here or not we have to execute our conditioning and high performance using our local human resource with the assistance of the technical expert from Cheetahs,” Kayangwe explained.