Tunisia eyes Morocco scalp to avoid relegation from Africa Gold Cup

Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-13 04:00:42|Editor: yan
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NAIROBI, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Tunisia Coach Jaco Stouman on Sunday expected a win over Morocco in their last game of the Rugby Africa Gold Cup on Saturday to avoid relegation.

With Kenya and defending champions Namibia running away with World Cup qualification slots, Tunisia and Morocco are facing off in a relegation battle in which the winner will stay in the top tier and the loser will be dropped to the Silver Cup next season.

Stouman remained optimistic his side will survive the onslaught.

"We have to work hard from Monday and be ready for Morocco and we are not getting relegated," said Stouman told Xinhua Sunday in Nairobi. "I can only pick the positives from the 0-67 loss to Kenya. My players showed some guts, especially in the second half, it was really good.

"Kenya is a good side. For us we need to take this experience, go work on our problems and come back next year," he added.

Kenya 15s Head Coach Ian Snook is however concerned with a few problems that cropped up during their last match against Tunisia and wants his side to rectify them quickly before flying to Windhoek, to face champions Namibia in a winner take it all.

Kenya picked five points from the win over Tunisia to move to 17 points and stay second in the Africa Gold Cup, three behind leaders Namibia, who have 20 points from their four game victories.

"There were still a few disappointing things but we will see and fix that next week. Willy Ambaka had a really good game. Managing to score twice as you saw it was a good for him on return to 15s action. He is getting better and better and he is obviously talented," said Snook.

The winner of the Gold Cup will gain automatic qualification to the World Cup in 2019 in Japan. The second team will enter the Repchage competition in Marseille, France where they will play Germany, Canada and China's Hong Kong with the winner taking the last slot to the World Cup.

"We would love to qualify directly to Japan and that's the goal, to beat Namibia. There is however a second chance of repechage but there is a big week ahead of us," added Snook.

Meanwhile, Uganda beat Morocco for their second consecutive win this year, cementing third place and their survival status of the first tier after losing their first two games.

Uganda's final game will be against Zimbabwe in Kampala on Saturday. Zimbabwe are fourth in the leaderboard.

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