The Africa Zone of qualifying for the 2009 Sevens Rugby World Cup (RWC) in Tunisia descended into a nine-team contest after the tournament was hit by a string of withdrawals at the eleventh hour.

Late Thursday, Nigeria and Cameroon joined the bulging list of countries to pull out. Ivory Coast, Morocco and Swaziland had already confirmed their withdrawal. In a move to make the tournament competitive, organisers regrouped the teams into two pools of five each.

Rugby Cranes have consequently been moved to Pool A alongside old foes Kenya, Namibia, Senegal and Tunisia II. Pool B has Tunisia, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana. All teams were due to play three games on Friday and another on Saturday to stay in line with International Rugby Board (IRB) rules that allow only three games-a-day.

Organisers also hired referees from France and only the top two from each pool will make the semifinals of the Main Cup set for this evening. The Rugby Cranes are meanwhile not receiving neglect often suffered by Ugandan teams on their travels, according to coach John Musoke. "Everyone is calm and focused on what we have to do while here. A lot of things have been done properly by the organizers and we have very few complaints," Musoke told Daily Monitor.

The 17-man Ugandan contingent is residing in Hotel Karim, a three-star hotel located in Gammarth which is 20km from Tunis where El Menzah Stadium, the tournament venue is found. "We managed to hold two training sessions (at the El Menzah) on Thursday and everyone is in shape. In fact it is not as hot as earlier feared and there has been some rain too," Musoke added.

Despite using the 45,000-seater multi-purpose stadium, also home to football clubs Club Africain and Esperance, there is little interest in the rugby showpiece in the football-mad country.