By Akeem Lawal
NIGERIA national rugby team, Black Stallions will on
Wednesday depart the shores of the country for Johannesburg, South Africa ahead
of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Sevens qualifiers scheduled to hold on 9–10 November
2019 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sportsbiz247.blogspot.com reports.
Nigeria Rugby have announced a 13-man list for the
qualifiers. The full list are: Onoru Jatto (Nigeria), Azeez Ladipo (Nigeria), Blaise
Felix (South Africa), Nuhu Ibrahim (Nigeria), David Kazeem Oyekanmi (Nigeria), Isaac
Agholor (South Africa), Sammy Ekpo (Nigeria), Joshua Etim (Nigeria), Samuel
Akpabio (Nigeria), Joseph Mogaji (United Kingdom), Joseph Chinedu (South
Africa), Niggi Maduchem (South Africa) and Declan Nwachukwu.
Captain of the team, Azeez Ladipo is optimistic of a good
outing in South Africa.
“The bulk of the team is here in Nigeria. It is not the
best of preparations, to be honest but we have to improvise with what we have.
So far so good, we have two strength and conditioning coaches, one here in
Nigeria and one working with the guys in South Africa. The guys in UK should
have arrived South Africa by now and we will meet the up and see what we can
produce.
“We stand a chance in South Africa. We are experienced
because most of the guys have been there before, so we know what to expect.
Although we have some new guys too. They joined us last year when we went for
Regional Sevens in Cote D ‘voire and reach the final. We were adjudged the best
team in the tournament, even with the new guys. I’m optimistic that we are
going to do well at the qualifiers,” Ladipo assures.
The tournament features a total of 14 teams: Nigeria, Botswana,
Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Senegal, Tunisia,
Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
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