Ugandan rugby team want to be new kings of Scotland

By Chris Barrett
Updated July 25 2014 - 9:23pm, first published 9:01pm
A member of the Ugandan squad trains at Dalziel Park in Motherwell. Photo: James Brickwood
A member of the Ugandan squad trains at Dalziel Park in Motherwell. Photo: James Brickwood
Training hard: Assistant coach Yayiro Kasasa directs his troops at training. Photo: James Brickwood
Training hard: Assistant coach Yayiro Kasasa directs his troops at training. Photo: James Brickwood

On a pristine field 30 minutes' drive east of Glasgow, one of Australia's opponents in this weekend's rugby sevens are being put through their paces.

On the pitch next door the Scottish Premier League football team Motherwell are training ahead of a Europa League qualifying match in Iceland.

Professional footballers in their midst, barely a blade of grass out of order and ice baths ready for them to slip into afterwards. It's a far cry from the usual surrounds of Uganda's rugby team.

The Cranes, though, as they're known, are not here to make up the numbers, insists their hulking assistant coach Yayiro Kasasa. 

They are pooled with Australia, England and Sri Lanka in Saturday's preliminary round at Ibrox and don't dare suggest to Kasasa that they won't be back at the ground when the Commonwealth Games rugby reaches its pointy end on Sunday.

"[Australia] are technically superior but we are geared towards making them sweat to win, and if not, to win," he says. "We are here for business."

In reality, the Ugandans will be right up against it to trouble Australia or England. They were thrashed 33-0 by Australia and 55-0 by England four years ago in Delhi, although they defeated Sri Lanka comfortably in a group that was exactly the same as their one in Glasgow.

Like much of the competition between Commonwealth giants and less developed nations here over the next week, Uganda beating Australia is not really the point, as romantic a tale as that would be. The playing field, as flawless as it will be at Ibrox this weekend, is nowhere near even.  

While Australia's sevens team travels the world on the top-tier IRB circuit, and are now full-time athletes based in Narrabeen, the Cranes traverse Africa when they can, taking on the likes of Namibia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Tunisia. When their 15-a-side team played against a second-string Kenya this week - they were thrashed 34-0 - Uganda took a 14-hour bus ride the day before to get to the game.  

A mix of students, lawyers, IT personnel, social workers and the like, the sevens side was even left to fork out its own spending money in Glasgow after the Ugandan government failed to deliver the allowances they were expecting before they left home.

The country's National Council of Sports reportedly released the funds weeks ago to sporting federations - each athlete and official was to receive 180,000 Ugandan shilling ($72) per day - but as the rugby side trained at Dalziel Park the cash had still not turned up.

The Ugandan chef de mission Ambrose Tashobya made noises about the funding shortfall in the lead-up to the Commonwealth Games, in an effort to be able to distribute the allowances before the 98 athletes arrived from Kampala.

His protests proved to no avail but their rugby representatives, at least, are determined not to be distracted by the issue. 

"We are not here for money or allowances," Kasasa said. "It helps out to do some small things here and there. We started training in March, and we said 'money can't take us off from our focus'. If the money comes it comes, if it doesn't come that's it. 

"We asked for it because we are entitled to it. The money is there but it's late; the chef de mission has assured us it is coming. But it's outside our immediate focus. We are not here for the money."

Rugby in Uganda dates back to British colonial rule. They played their first international against Kenya in 1958 and the country's former military strongman Idi Amin - whose brutal dictatorship was the subject of the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland - features heavily in its history.

At 193cm Amin was a noted player himself as well as a champion heavyweight boxer, taking up rugby as a sergeant in the British colonial army in Kenya and playing at club level upon his return. His ruthless presidency in the 1970s, however, would put the game on hold.

"Rugby in Uganda started in the 1950s, and was going on for some time when there were a few problems during regime change, the bad times of the regime (of) Idi Amin," Kasasa said. 

"He took over the government, and he expelled Indians and other expatriates from the country for about eight years and everything went down and it only picked up again after he was removed. 

"He was a lock and he played for some time. He was a good player; he was big. They're the stories I hear, because I obviously did not see him play."

If Amin's hurried departure from Kampala in 1979, in the face of an approaching force of Tanzanian soldiers and Ugandan exiles, set rugby back on the path forward, its development there is not without fresh obstacles.

Uganda were at one point ranked No.32 in the world in the IRB sevens rankings but they have slid to No.57 leading into Glasgow. 

Their player base has been eroded, Kasasa says, by a decline in playing surfaces.

"The organisation, its structures are in place. The problems we are facing at the moment is the playing facilities, the grounds, are being taken over by politicians," he said. 

"They want to put up something, a development, and that's affecting the growth. 

"So we are struggling to have the spread of games around the country. We are now going into schools because they have the facilities but the clubs do not. The numbers in schools are high, but the playing facilities are limited. But we have kept the fire burning." 

The Ugandans hope their appearance in Glasgow can give the sport a much-needed lift and hold no fear of their rivals this weekend.

"We can beat Australia," Kasasa said. "We have beaten France. Argentina, we squared them off, so it's nothing so special.

"Anything can happen. We might be small, but our hearts are big."

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