- Promotional Playoff Semi-final Replay
- Result: Elgon Wolves 09-31 Warriors
The team to be promoted to the 2023-24 Nile Special Rugby Premier League will come from the Central Region.
This comes after Warriors beat Elgon Wolves by 31-9 in the semi-final replay at Damwaters Rugby Club in Jinja.
Hamza Kinyai, formerly known as Richard Kinyai, was in blazing hot form. He scored all the points in the first half – one try, one conversion, and two penalties – for Warriors to take a 13-nil lead into the break.
In the second half, he added a further eighteen points to put the game out of reach of the Wolves. Co-captain Simon Peter Nyeko added a try for Warriors to punch the ticket into the final.
Elgon Wolves’ only points in the match were three penalties off Hamisi Mbithi Katumba’s boot.
Rather unsurprisingly given the lead-up to this replay, Warriors were in control of the match from start to finish.
This was the culmination of a compelling appeal by Warriors’ technical and legal bench against Elgon Wolves alleging that the latter had fielded ineligible players in the first match. The said players were not formally and fully transferred and registered from their clubs under Kenya Rugby Union for whom they had played earlier this season.
Why this match was replayed
Consequently, Warriors were found to have won the appeal which put them in the driving seat of the contest.
The largely one-sided result sets up an all-Kampala final next weekend against Kitante Eagles at a yet-to-be-confirmed venue. Eagles have the upper hand against Warriors from the results during the Central Region Championship.
They beat Warriors, 32-21, in the first round before both settled for a seventeen-all draw in the second round.
