National handball teams in shape for Ethiopia trip

Wakasi Kato leaps to shoot during training at Kibuli yesterday. PHOTO BY ISMAIL KEZAALA

What you need to know:

Handball. For six weeks now, the teams have been undergoing two-hour double sessions on a daily basis

KAMPALA.

Barely a fortnight away from the trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the national netball team (men and women), is ready for the All-Africa Games qualifier tournament due March 8 to 16, according to head coach Bernard Opoka.

“Most of the players have reported for training. We have no major injuries and we have had enough training,” Opoka told Daily Monitor during yesterday morning’s training session at Kibuli Police Training School. “I strongly believe we are good to go.”

The two sides have been having double two-hour training sessions everyday for the last six weeks.

“I am 85 per cent confident that we shall make it,” Opoka said, expressing no worries about the possibility of facing the tournament’s toughest opponents, Kenya.

“We have played almost all our likely opponents; I have respect for Kenya, the strongest of all, but I know a lot about their game— they do not scare me that much,” he added.

Opoka, 30, also head coach for Prisons Handball Club, started training the national team back in 2006 as a coach-player. In February last year, he completed an International Handball Federation course in Qatar and is now certified to handle any national side.

The handball federation started the year passing a begging basket to solicit funds to facilitate the trip to Ethiopia but team manager, Dan Musoke, is confident they will travel with a full squad and in time.” Moses Akena, Ibrahim Kongo, Felix Mukunzi, Christopher Onen, Chester Olowonga, Gilbert Ojok and Yakub Aziz are some of the male players in camp.

The women’s side has the likes of Proscovia Nakalungi, Muhaimuna Namuwaya, Achan Jesca, Farida Namusisi Agnes Nalule, Harriet Apako and Stella Akong.

Not worried
Even with financial constraints, team manager, Dan Musoke, is confident Uganda will be represented by a full squad. He has also promised that the team will travel in time for the tournament in Addis Ababa.