louis mallowa
September 8, 2020
The Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) has announced the appointment of Innocent Simiyu as the head coach of the Kenya Sevens team.
The former Shujaa captain returns for a second stint, two years after he was sacked.
Simiyu replaces Paul Feeny, who left the team in April owing to the uncertainty around the Covid-19 pandemic.
His appointment comes after an intensive interview last month in which he defeated Dennis Mwanja, Paul Murunga, and Nick Wakley.
“Following a KRU board meeting on Monday, 1st September 2020, we would like to confirm Simiyu as the head coach, having attained top marks in the interview,” a statement on Kru official website read.
The panel had Thomas Odundo, the KRU acting CEO, Paul Feeney, former Kenya 7s head coach and Peter Harding, who is a World Rugby High-Performance consultant.
The Kenya 7s team qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but the HSBC World Sevens Series seems to be in doubt with the Dubai/Cape Town and New Zealand/Australia legs cancelled due to Covid-19.
Namcos, as he is fondly known, is a former Kenya International and handled the team on the Sevens World Series between 2016 and 2018.
He steered the team to 12th position with 63 points during the 2016/17 season before guiding them to the eighth position, with a record points tally of 104 points during the 2017/18 season.
