By John Kwoba
NAIROBI, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's women's rugby team will treat the Dubai Sevens tournament as part of its preparations ahead of next year's qualifiers for World Series core status and the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Head coach Kevin Wambua believes Kenya will weather the storm and gain more from the second round of the 2018-2019 Women's World Rugby Sevens Series, which kicks off in Dubai on Nov. 29.
"Our main goal is to be ready for next year. It will be big for us as we have qualifiers for the Women's World Series as well as the Olympics in Tokyo. We want to use this tournament to test some of the new players coming into the system," Wambua said here on Tuesday.
Kenya lost to China in last season's qualifiers for core status in the World Series. However, Wambua is confident his team will do better, after gaining more experience from the tournament and at the Commonwealth Games in Australia in April.
"Our training so far has been very positive. I am happy with the new crop of players we have drafted into the team. They have a lot of potential and talent and it will not take long for me to fine-tune their skills and be ready for the Dubai contest and the challenges we expect in the Olympics and World Series qualifiers in 2019," the coach said.
Kenya has been grouped in Pool A in next month's Dubai Women's Sevens and will again clash with Commonwealth Games champions New Zealand, who won the season opener at the Glendale Sevens in the United States last weekend. Kenya will also face Ireland and Russia.
It will be the second appearance for the Kenyan women's team in the Dubai Sevens. The first time was in 2016 when they participated in Clermont before heading out to Brazil for the Rio Olympics.
Pool B contains the United States, the runners-up at the Glendale Sevens, the 2017 Dubai defending champions Australia, England and China. Pool C will see Canada take on France, Spain and Fiji.
Top two teams in the pool will proceed to the main cup finals.
