It is five days until the 2022 Rugby Africa U20 Barthes Trophy kicks off at the Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi, Kenya.
The fixtures for the tournament which will feature eight nations in a knockout format from the quarterfinal stage have officially been released. Uganda will face hosts Kenya in the first round.
Barthes Trophy Quarterfinal Fixtures (Saturday, April 9, 2022):
- QuarterFinal One (9.00a.m.): Namibia v Cote d’Ivoire
- QuarterFinal Two (11.30 a.m.): Tunisia v Zimbabwe
- QuarterFinal Three (2.00p.m.): Madagascar v Zambia
- QuarterFinal Four (4.30 p.m.): Kenya v Uganda
The winners from this stage will progress to the semifinal while the losers will drop to the classification matches. The semifinals will be played four days later on Wednesday and the final on Easter Sunday after which the teams will be ranked.
At the end of the tournament, the teams ranked 7th and 8th will play in a repechage competition comprising four nations, themselves and two challengers from the rest of Africa, for two slots at the next Barthes Trophy in 2023.
Kenya are the current defending champions, having won back-to-back tournaments in 2020 and 2021 (the 2020 event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic), and thus are the top-seeded nation in the tournament while Uganda enter as the bottom seed.
This, however, does not dim the lights on the fixture which pits the next-door neighbours and great rugby rivals. The senior national teams play the thrilling Elgon Cup annually, and this is expected to be the starting point of more thrillers in future.
Uganda’s final squad that will feature at this tournament was named on Saturday morning. The squad are yet to travel to Nairobi but expect to arrive in the Kenyan capital by Thursday evening.
The organisers of the tournament have announced that the tournament is going to be open to the public.
