Sharp shooting Neil Mulama converted four penalties when former Kenya Cup side Eldoret RFC defeated Kitale RFC at the inaugural Western Region Pre-Season Lake Victoria Cup tournament Rugby15s tournament played today at the Eldoret Sports Club.
Enjoying home advantage, Eldoret struggled to defeated the KRU Championships side Kitale before registering a narrow win 17-15 to progress to the quarterfinals set for next weekend.
The visitors made the first try when Jeremy Chimwani converted his try after touching down first for a 7-0 lead but celebrations were cut short when Lawrence Omollo sprinted past the defence, going down past the white wash for the hosts first try that Mulama failed to convert for a 7-5 lead.
But Mulama redeemed his image when he shot past the posts with his penalty to earn the hosts an 8-7 lead and Thomas Khaemba failed to convert his own try when he touched down the second for Kitale with a 10-08 lead for the visitors into water break.
On resumption, Mulama scored his second penalty for a 11-10 lead before adding the second to take a 14-10 lead.
Kitale conceded a penalty when Brevin Mwembe was sent on sin bin but Eldoret failed to capitalize on their numeric and Mulama sending his penalty shot wide.
Coming off the sin bin, Mwembe touched down for the third try with Aloice Oduako failing to concert to a narrow 15-14 lead for Kitale.
As Kitale were planning to celebrate the victory, Mulama, managed to shot his 4th penalty between the posts to hand the hosts a win despite falling down on numeric when Idris Eibar was sinbinned.
The champions team manager Billy Ochieng said that the victory has propelled them to another top class as they prepare for the quarterfinals as well as the league that starts next month.
“This was a tough game and we were trying some of our new players ahead of the league. It is also a good chance for us to win since we want to carry the trophy to Eldoret,” said Ochieng.
Kitale’s Ben Ambuko, despite losing was confident that they lost on a better team but that will not deter their efforts to progress.
“it was a well deserved win for them but this has also given us another chance to prepare a good squad for the league,” he said.