Times have changed rather dramatically: RVA in a recent game against Mangu High.
Kijabe is a small rather unique missionary town at the edge of the Great Rift Valley. The town is located between Limuru and Naivasha. Those who have played rugby there will NOT be surprised to learn that Kijabe is a Masai word that means “place of the wind.” It is precisely 61 kilometres from Nairobi. Just 2 kilometers away from the town where you will never find anybody selling alcohol or cigarettes is Kijabe Mission station where the famous hospital is found and this is also home of Rift Valley Academy) RVA, for many years our arch rugby rivals.
If truth be told RVA has hardly been a happy hunting ground for Mean maroon rugby over the years and victories there for us have been rare and far between. In my 6 years in Lenana we returned many times from Kijabe dejected and defeated.
Part of the reason was that the RVA rugby side tended to include older students including some from the Bible college which was within the academy, these players also played together for a much longer time than our Lenana team players did. Then there is the fact that the rugby pitch is on the side of a hill and strong unexpected winds keep blowing all the time which can affect both your running and the way the rugby ball behaves either from a pass or a kick. As a result it was fairly common over the years for us to lose away at RVA and then win comfortably at home against the determined mostly Mzungus.
The most memorable victory I recall witnessing at RVA was in 1979 and the star of that game was the legendary Dave Madara. Anxiety for that game had started inside the lorry journey to RVA which would usually last almost one and a half hours or so. In fact people used to joke that the away game was so far away in the Rift Valley. However the truth is that Kijabe is actually in Lari division of Kiambu District. Anyway Madara was nursing a serious shoulder injury and appeared to be in pain during the long journey to RVA. As we started descending the escarpment he was padded up where the shoulder injury was and took what must have been very strong painkillers. We were travelling with the 1st XV for our senior colts game at the same venue and I watched in dreaded disbelief being sure in my mind that it would certainly NOT work and poor Madara would just injure himself further and much more seriously this time. It would take just one knock on that shoulder and even I could start feeling the pain on his behalf.
The other big doubt in that game for me was George “steak” Ondiek at Full back. That year his legend was yet to be born and at the time I knew he was good but wondered whether he had the nerves for a serious and critical RVA game. To my huge relief and those of other travelling fans/players Ondiek not only rose to the occasion but was also so cool at the back that you would have thought he was on an afternoon stroll at Uhuru Park or something. In one incident he took a very high up and under blowing like crazy in the wind (a favorite strategy of RVA who knew the wind would frequently win them a scrum down for a dropped ball or even a try if they picked up the ball and the ref played advantage) and he then he very calmly trotted backwards into his 25 yard area for a safer kick into touch. Madara at fly half kept passing the ball to the line and I could see that he was avoiding contact as much as possible. We were on edge the whole game until late in the second half when Madara received the ball and instead of passing, kicked a high up and under. “kicking away possession”, I said to myself. It was getting dark and visibility was not all that clear but I noticed a Maroon shirt hurtling towards the RVA try line to catch the ball. There was no way most of us could make out who it was. A few RVA players were under it already and waiting for it to reach the ground. In a flash the maroon shirt literally flew high over their heads, grabbed the ball and landed heavily on the try line behind them. TRY!!! But who was the hero? “It’s Madara,” somebody said. I was speechless. It couldn’t be! Not with that shoulder. But it was. The man is not a legend for nothing and knowing what I did, that victory was extra sweet at RVA. Predictably Madara winced in pain all the way back to changes but we were all delighted at the rare victory.
In 1982 with our star-studded side we could not match the feat of 1979. Our scrum won most balls, some even against the head as hooker Karanja did his magic, but the backs could not convert any of the possession into tries. I believe that RVA were expecting an easy time after comfortably winning both games against Lenana in 1981 and that is why we felt that at the beginning of the game there was much more space to run in. However as the game progressed they quickly closed ranks and put up a tight defense. It developed into a very tightly contested game. I believe the score was 3-3 or something like that. And I think Otieno “Jango” converted a penalty to cancel out an earlier one by RVA.
We were exhausted at the end of that game and knew that we had set the stage for another gruelling encounter, this time on Sterlings. Whoever won that would lift the Prescott cup which until then had stubbornly and permanently remained in Kijabe.
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