By John Kwoba
NAIROBI, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's hopes of competing at the 2019 Rugby World Cup were dashed when they lost 42-17 to China's Hong Kong at the repechage tournament in Marseille, France.
They had lost their first repechage match to Canada 65-19 last week and only the winner of the repechage tournament will qualify for the 2019 World Cup in Japan.
Now the team will turn its focus to the Sevens game, with the start of the World Rugby Sevens Series on Dec. 1 in Dubai and the Olympic qualification tournament set for 2019.
Head coach Ian Snook is not giving up hope and said they will give their best performance on Friday when they play their last match of the repechage World Cup qualifier against Germany.
"The team has potential and will soon be able to wrestle with other bigwigs for the medals," said Snook on Monday. "However, we need to professionalize the sport in Kenya and give it more support and play against top teams more often."
Kenya's captain Wilson Kopondo said the team needs to work hard on the errors they made mostly in the second half as they prepare to take on Germany.
"It is a tough tournament and we have played our hearts out. What I can promise is that we will be back a better team and ready to join the big league," said Kopondo. "Our endurance is wanting and we lose focus in the last 20 minutes. This is something we need to work on going forward because we always let the game slip through our hands after a strong start."
Coach Snook says the big work for him has been maintaining Kenya's phase attack and defensive patterns. "They are a good all-round team who are well organized and have several attacking threats. But Kenya needs to step up a few levels in our game in all aspects if we are to beat the big teams," said Snook.
