With the 7s Commonwealth games & 7s Rugby World Cup scheduled for July & September in Birmingham & Cape Town respectively calling, the Rugby Cranes Sevens (Uganda men’s 7s team) will have quite a busy year that will call for a lot of focus and commitment.
The 7s team will have camps throughout the season to get the players in the right physical & mental frame for the qualifiers tournament. The Africa 7s set for 23rd & 24th April will double as qualifiers for the 7s World Cup & the Commonwealth games.
As plans to have the team adequately prepared, the URU recently entered into a partnership with South Africa particularly the Stellenbosch Academy of Sports (SAS) to provide the team with specialized coaching expertise as well as options to have the team camp at SAS.
South Africa is sending Philip Snyman who is a BlitzBoks legend to Uganda to give support to the Uganda 7s coaching team in preparing the team. Philip is a former SA 7s Captain. He played for BlitzBoks between 2008 and 2019 and won 3 World Rugby 7s series titles. He is the current head of SA Rugby 7s structure based out of SAS.
Philip will be accompanied by Johan Van Wyk who is a Strength & Conditioning specialist coach from SAS.
This camp will take place from 23rd to 29 January 2022 with the sessions taking place at King’s Park Arena in Bweyogerere. The team will use this camp to test the players and combinations and seek to introduce some newer players into the 7s programme.
The players will be rotated around the various camps and try get the right blend to make the final team for the qualifiers tournament.
The camps will see other players called up/returned to the subsequent camps as we try keep some players playing in the league for their clubs in the Nile Special Rugby Premier League so as to strike a balance.
*Source: Uganda Rugby Union website.
