Kenya’s chances of finishing the regular 2024/25 HSBC SVNS Series campaign inside the safe top 8 positions took a massive hit after the team failed to make it out of the group stages in the ongoing Hong Kong 7s marking the penultimate outing this season.
The Kevin Wambua-coached side, who went into the tournament in 9th place, needed to fight for the maximum points on offer but showed little character as they collapsed in their remaining two group stages against Great Britain and France.
At the start of the tournament taking place at the new Kai Tak Stadium, Shujaa showed a lot of spark in their opening clash against Spain as they stunned the team in position two on the overall standings 19-0 but could not stay consistent.
Needing just one win from the remaining two games, Shujaa succumbed to avoidable defeats against Great Britain on Friday before yet another meltdown against Olympic champions France early Saturday morning.
Against France, Shujaa played against six men at some point but could not make their numerical advantage count as the Frenchmen got the job done with tries from Simon Desert and Mateo Garcia’s efforts sandwiching an individual Patrick Odongo try.
The result meant that Shujaa needed favours from Great Britain to beat Spain in the other Pool C encounter for them to qualify as one of the best third place fnishers.
However, that was not to be as Spain thrashed Great Britain 26-12 to progress as the Pool C winners alongside runners up Great Britain.
Kenya 7s headed to promotion/relegation playoffs
The newly introduced high-stakes promotion and relegation play-off competition will take place simultaneously in Los Angles from 3-4 May with teams ranked ninth to twelfth in SVNS 2025 competing with the top four teams from the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2025.
The competition format involves two pools of four teams to decide who plays who in the all-important play off matches on Sunday, with the winners of the resulting four cross-over matches securing their place in HSBC SVNS 2026, while the losing teams will enter the regional qualification pathway for the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2026.
