The Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) has today announced the appointment of a new technical team to manage The Simbas for their upcoming 2019 assignments.
Paul Odera has been appointed as the new coach of the national 15s Men’s side popularly known as the Kenya Simbas, with the upcoming 2019 Elgon matches against the Uganda Rugby Cranes his first major task.
In a statement from KRU on Thursday, Odera, who is currently the Head Coach for Chipu – the Under 20 National Team that recently qualified for the Junior World Rugby Trophy for the second time – first time was in 2009, will take over from Ian Snook who was fired in January this year.
Odera holds a World Rugby Level 3 Coaching Certificate and is also a World Rugby Coach Educator. He is a teacher at Peponi House Preparatory School. He also has 20 years’ experience of and coaching in Independent Schools in Kenya, South Africa and New Zealand.
His technical team shall comprise of Jimmy Mnene (Team Manager), Ben Mahinda (Team Physiotherapist), Edwin Boit (Team Analyst), Michael Owino (Strength and Conditioning Coach) and Albertus Van Buuren (Backs Coach).
With the cancellation of the 2019 Rugby Africa Gold Cup competition, the team does not have many fixtures and the Union is working hard to fill the calendar.
The Confirmed games for this season so far are Elgon Cup matches against Uganda on the 22nd of June in Kisumu and on 13th July in Kampala, Uganda.
On Saturday 1st June, KRU will hold trials at the RFUEA Grounds to select the provisional Simbas squad that will represent Kenya in the 2019 Elgon Cup fixtures.
Last year, the Kenya Simbas won the Elgon Cup 72-38 on aggregate. 34-16 at Legends, Kampala in the first leg and 38-22 in Nairobi.
