Poor preps cost us in Safaricom 7s, says coach

Poor preparation is to blame for Silverbacks’ poor performance in the just concluded 2012 Safaricom 7s tournament, coach Jean Baptist Itanze told Sunday Sport.Prior to the tournament, the national team had a target of bettering past performances or even win the title for the first time but, they suffered a 14-0 semi final defeat to a select University team of Kenya to bow out of the Shied category.Itanze’s team went on lose 0-48 against a Western Province side in the Bowl competition. It was the fourth appearance in Safaricom 7s tournament.But in an interview after the team’s return from Nairobi, Itanze said that while the other teams started the preparations for the competition early enough, the Silverbacks trained for just three weeks.He said, “Competing in such a big tournament needs good preparations physically and mentally but we didn’t as our performances proved it.”“All the team that took part had enough time and resources for proper preparations, unlike us who trained for about three weeks and the conditions weren’t the best.We didn’t do as well as we wanted but over all it was a good for our players to gain more experience which will help them in the future” he added.South Africa’s Elite Players Development (EPD) won the tournament after edging hosts Kenya Moran 21-17 in the Main Cup final.