Nairobi — National men's volleyball team captain Enock Mogeni says they have picked valuable lessons from the Africa Nations Championships in Egypt where they finished ninth.
Mogeni said they are raring to go for their next international assignment, having played against the best of the best in the continent and improved their experience of playing at the top level.
"We are happy to have arrived back home safely. Now we need to recharge our focus and ready ourselves for the next assignment. Looking at what we have garnered and brought back home from Egypt, the boys are motivated and we are going to push ourselves harder...we know the playoffs are not going to be easy this time round. Thank you so much to all those who have supported us," Mogeni said.
His sentiments were echoed by libero James Mutero, who believes Kenya have the ability to match the power of North African giants of Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria.
"It has been an honour to represent the country. Unfortunately, we did not attain the targets we had for this competition but we have come back with a lot of lessons. Hopefully, when we resume training, we will remember all of them and work on the mistakes that are preventing us to be at par with the North African countries," he said.
The two were speaking on Friday morning at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) where Wafalme were received by top officials of the Kenya Volleyball Federation (KVF) led by the president, Charles Nyaberi.
Speaking at the same time, coach Gideon Tarus reiterated the sentiments of his two players, adding that the continental competition was a reality check for Kenya on the growing standards of the game.
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"We got a lot of experience...we realized that indeed volleyball has changed. Things are changing every year so it is upon us to see what we need to change and everything will be all right. Even if we lost in our pool, we wouldn't say it was a bad performance because we gave it our all in every match considering the caliber of opponents," Tarus said.
The coach promised that the outcome would be very different in subsequent matches against their esteemed opponents.
"We played against Cameroon, Egypt and Algeria and although they beat us, we have studied them so well and now know what to do when we meet next time. The story will be different when we meet," he said.
Wafalme closed out their campaign on a high with a 3-2 win over Ghana in sets of 25-19, 25-21, 18-25, 30-32, 16-14.
