Kenya Under-20 rugby coach Simon Jawichre has made five changes to the squad ahead of the World Rugby Trophy 7th place decider match against Hong Kong today at the Hive Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The tactician made two positional changes to the starting line-up with Andycole Omolo moving from back-row to lock and Elvis Otete switching from left side to right wing.
Nathan Tsindoli, Eugene Ojiambo and Daniel Kipchirchir have been promoted from the bench to the starting 15.
Chipu lost all their three pool matches in the tournament, going down 25-7 to Uruguay, 51-3 to the Netherlands, and 30-17 to the USA.
Hong Kong (China) equally lost all their pool matches. They lost 20-105 loss to Japan, suffered a 101-0 defeat against hosts Scotland and fell to Samoa 19-39 in their third match.
Jawichre has urged his charges to finish the tournament on a high after glimpses of good rugby in their defeat to the USA on Friday last week.
“ There were encouraging signs last week. We started slowly and built good plays and momentum to score two good tries. My message to the boys is to play good rugby for the entire 80 minutes to get our first win."
Skipper Edmond Omondi said they were keen to start the match against the Asian outfit well.
“ We have had very slow starts in our matches and if we can start well and build momentum, it will give us a chance to gather pace," said Omondi
He added: “ The boys are excited and ready. We want to play a high-tempo game, utilise the width of the pitch and get front football from our forwards to give us the win."
This will be the second meeting between the two sides with the first being in July 2023 when Kenya hosted the U20 Trophy.
The two teams met on July 25, 2023, in the pool matches with Kenya emerging victorious with a 22-16 score. The match will kick off at 1:45 pm.
