Kenya falls to South Africa in ninth place final at Hong Kong 7s

The Kenya National men's rugby team Shujaa, narrowly lost 19-17 to South Africa in the ninth place final at the Hong Kong Sevens early Sunday morning.

Shujaa looked set to shock the South Africans after Nigel Peterson Amaitsa scored the second of his two tries on 10 minutes and then Patrick Odongo ran over to hand Shujaa a 17-12 lead with just over three minutes left to play.

The experienced South Africa side however dug deep and showed their class in the end, with Sisiwe Soyivwapi running through on 13 minutes to make it 17 all.

DeWald Human then converted to make it 17-19 for the Blitz Boks right at the final whistle.

On day two of the competition Saturday, Shujaa lost 14-7 to France in their final group game on Saturday morning to complete their group stage matches with one win and two losses.

They had on Friday shocked Spain 19-0 before succumbing 12-7 to Great Britain in their second pool match.

As a result, they finished bottom of their pool, behind France on head to head, meaning they would participate in the ninth place semis.

Later on in the day, they beat the USA 17-10 in the semis of the ninth place classification to book their place in then final.

Kevin Wekesa, Vincent Onyala and Patrick Odongo were the scoresheet for Shujaa.

The Hong Kong Sevens is the fifth of seven legs of the World Sevens Series.

Thus far Kenya has played in Dubai, Cape Town, Perth and Vancouver.

Following Hong Kong, they will head to Singapore in April and Los Angeles in May in the final two legs.