The Uganda Rugby Sevens Lady Cranes are the 2023 Safari 7s Champions.
Three tries through Lydia Namabiro, Agnes Nakuya, and Rita Nadunga were enough to guide Uganda to a 15-12 win over noisy neighbours, Kenya Lionesses.
This was sweet revenge for the Lady Cranes, who fell to the Lionesses 12-05 on day one despite going into the lead.
The finale was a show of lessons learnt on cooperation. The lady Cranes had crumbled to the Cubs in the group stages earlier in the day but managed to rectify that glitch to floor them in semis before meeting and beating their seniors, the Lionesses.
“Moving into this tourney, we looked into what we needed to rectify and set out for it. The loss to them was close yesterday, but we believed we had to fix a few things mentally and put in the work,” said Coach Charles Onen.
“Congratulations to the girls; they’ve managed to pull this off. It’s a very good feeling.”
It’s been quite the year for the lady cranes. The Lady Cranes 7s side were bronze medallists in Tunisia after defeating Zambia 29-10 in the third-place playoff.
Owing to the third-place finish at the Rugby Africa Women’s Sevens, Uganda qualified for the repechage alongside Kenya to represent Africa, trying to punch their ticket to the Paris Olympics.
