The first day of the KRU Rugby Development development came to a conclusion after a great lesson from Itai Chataurwa, Zimbabwe U20 Committee Chairman at Strathmore University.
The conference which has set focus on how to revolutionize Kenya Rugby starting from the grassroots to the senior level featured an outstanding speech from Chataurwa.
He acknowledged that for their junior teams to be progressive and to have the game highly embraced, they got support from parents as well as consent.
“To succeed in age-grade rugby, you need a lot of goodwill from parents, our program is supported by parents and the private sector we also have a strong system at the primary school level and High School rugby,” said Chataurwa.
“To ensure Kenyan rugby builds a legacy, you can drive more interest and attention into school rugby, as there can be a radical shift in the game, and as such it is mandatory that all primary school coaches have level 1 certification,” he stated.
According to Chataurwa, they have been able to build teams for both the girls and boys using the system and he is sure that the system can also work in Kenya.
“For the high schools, we group them according to performance having those with higher performance in the same tier and play in the highest level of high school rugby, we select players from all tiers and it is the job of the coach to profile players across all levels. We have national teams at these levels. U14, U17, U18, U20 for boys and girls which play in the Craven Week.,” he added.
“We want our kids to start facing the big stage at the U14 level.” he said.
In response to this, the KRU boss Sasha Mutai has acknowledged the need for the Union to collaborate with the Ministry of Education as one of the propagating ways to stimulate the growth of Rugby across the country.
“I am keen on seeing the KRU partner with the Ministry of Education as we seek to have the game of rugby formally introduced at the primary school level and as such we need to encourage more public and private partnerships to boost the growth and development of the game of the game across the country,” said the KRU Chairman Sasha Mutai.
He has also said that it’s important to also initiate international schools and private schools as a way to help realize and adopt local talents through the institutions.
