The national senior men’s rugby team departs today (at 7pm) aboard a RwandAir flight en route to Ghana for the Africa Bronze Cup tournament to be staged in Cape Coast.

Rwanda will take on the hosts on May 9 while Lesotho will be up against Mauritius in the other game. Winners in each game will meet in the final on May 12.

National rugby team head coach Claude Aime Ezoua released a final 25-man squad that will represent the country at the four-day showpiece.

Over the last couple of weeks, Silverbacks have been under intensive preparations at a residential camp in Rubavu District. 

According to Ezoua, a former coach of the Ivory Coast national team, the reason for camping in Rubavu was to make sure the players get acclimatised to the humid weather since they will be competing under similar conditions in Cape Coast.

"Camping in Rubavu provided a good spectrum of playing under the Coast conditions. Cape Coast has high temperatures and hot winds, so Rubavu was a perfect choice for training,” he said

Asked who were likely to be Rwanda’s main rivals in Ghana, Ezoua said: "The hosts are absolutely our main threat. They have achieved a lot in such a short period of time, including winning the Rugby Africa Regional Challenge last year.” 

The Silverbacks return to Africa Bronze Cup for the first time since 2015 when they suffered a 98-0 humiliation at hands of Zambia and dropped to Division C from Division B.

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