For Rwandan clubs to improve and compete fairly in continental championships, they need to play more friendly games against top sides. Police Handball Club coach Sgt Albert Sibomana has said.

The two-time reigning national champions, Police, returned from the just concluded African Handball Champions League in Nador, Morocco on Monday.

"Rwandan handball still has a long way to be at the level of North African countries where the sport is played at a professional level.

"We play just for passion, we need to start playing against top teams more regularly if we’re to have any chance to compete fairly during such championships,” Sgt Sibomana said during an exclusive interview with Times sport.

He noted that, "We need to start training players at a young age, so they start learning the game from an early age. We also need to train a bit more and have more friendlies so we can get at that level.”

The 2015 league and Carré d’ As champions lost all pool games before losing their classification match against Inter club (Congo Brazzaville) 45-33 which placed them at 15th out of 16 teams.

Sgt. Sibomana said lack of experience was his team’s biggest problem, "We were competing against teams that are experienced but despite not winning any game, we have learnt a lot from there.”

Police had a squad of only 14 players compared to other teams that had 25 players; however Sgt. Sibomana remains positive and hopes to be better prepared when his team next competes at Africa’s biggest handball championships.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw