NAIROBI, KENYA, Nov 3- Kenya Simbas head coach Jerome Paarwater believes the team’s trip to Hong Kong on Monday for a Four Nations invitational tournament will be vital for their preparations towards next year’s World Cup qualifiers.
The South African coach marking his sixth year at the helm of the team is determined to lead Kenya into their first ever 15s World Cup in Japan in 2019.
The Simbas will face the hosts Hong Kong, Chile and Russia across eight days, a period Paarwater believes will be vital as the team tries out its systems for the qualifiers.
“At this moment every tournament is important for us as far as the 2019 World Cup is concerned. We are not going there just to participate but to compete. We have had a good period of training; eight weeks of pre-season work and I believe we are somewhere positive now,” Paarwater told Capital Sport on Friday.
The team kicks-off their campaign against Chile then face the Russians before finishing off with the hosts who beat them in a test match in Nairobi earlier in the season.
“We are going there with three different game plans for all the different teams and I think this is the same plan we will apply even heading into next year. It is important to win our first match against Chile. Looking at Russia they are big strong boys and they will be our biggest opponents,” Paarwater said.
“We have scores to settle with Hong Kong. They know us and we know them as well so it is going to be a very interesting match between us,” he added.
In the just concluded season, the Simbas didn’t see things pan out as well as they expected, losing home ties against Germany and Hong Kong, drawing with Uganda in an Elgon return leg tie and being beaten by Namibia in the African Cup as well.
But the tactician who says they have addressed many issues picked up during the season in pre-season says it was a steep learning curve which has made the team better. Among the issues that dragged the team steps behind included set piece play.
“It was a topsy-turvy season for us but the lessons we have picked are very important. Also from the last World Cup campaign, we learnt so much and we can’t afford to make same mistakes,” said the coach.
-Forget 2014 nightmare-
The Simbas will quickly want to forget their foiled World Cup attempt in 2014, having dropped the pot at the doorstep when they had a massive realistic chance to qualify.
Having won their first two games of the tournament 29-22 over Namibia and 34-0 over Madagascar, Kenya had amassed a total of 10 points which meant they only needed one point in the last match against Zimbabwe to top and get a World Cup ticket.
To get a minimum of one point Kenya needed to either score four tries or lose by a margin of less than seven points but laxity saw them lose 27-10 to Zimbabwe and drop to third.
Ahead of the qualifiers for the 2019 showpiece, competition is again expected from Zimbabwe and Namibia.
“The big goal is definitely to get to the World Cup and with the almost six years of work I have put in since I came in I am confident we can make it to the World Cup,” a bullish Paarwater.
The tactician has spiced up his technical bench ahead of the Namibia tour, drafting in Backs coach Levy Labeeb into the technical bench to assist in high performance training and analysis.
Paarwater is confident his fellow South African will add a lot of value to the team.
“He has a lot of experience and will have a huge impact on the team. He is taking a few things off my shoulders and with his experience on the technical aspect of the game, he is a great addition. He has been with the team several times; players know him and the value he adds,” Paarwater said.
