The women football national team head coach Grace Nyinawumuntu has said that the team benefited a lot from this year’s CECAFA Women Championships held in Uganda despite suffering an early exit.

Making their debut appearance at the first regional women’s tournament in 30 years, Rwanda lost both their Group B ties 3-2 to Tanzania in their opener last week before falling to Ethiopia in a similar fashion coming from behind twice only to lose because of a lapse in concentration.

Nyinawumuntu however described their first campaign as an exposure platform that has given them a real picture of how they are standing in comparison to other regional countries insisting that they will be title contenders next year if the team is given a chance to compete in more competitions.

"We lacked experience and this can be witnessed from the fact that we conceded the first goal in both games in the first ten minutes, it was the first international competition almost to all my players so naivety was a key problem,” said Nyinawumuntu

She noted that,” I have seen the level of football in the region so now I know what my team is lacking and what I am going to work on as national team head coach but the solution is to play in more competitions to gain more experience and confidence in players.”

"This experience will definitely make us stronger as we now look to prepare for more competitions and the federation has pledged to organize friendly games to help the team improve,” added Nyinawumuntu

Rwanda made their international debut in 2014 in the Africa Women Cup of Nations qualifiers and eliminated Kenya at the first hurdle on away goals rule before falling to record African champions Nigeria 12-1 on aggregate in the final round of qualification.

The team has since been disbanded by (FERWAFA) who only revived it less than three weeks ago to compete at this tournament. By press time, Tanzania and Kenya were due to face off in the finals.

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