Kenya Lionesses, the second seeds of the Rugby Africa Women’s seven-a-side tournament in Accra, Ghana survived a scare by Madagascar’s Makkis before narrowly winning 22-17 in their final Pool B match on Saturday.

Sarindra Raharimalala scored the first try for Madagascar before Veronique Rasoanekena capitalized on a defensive blunder to dot the second under the posts. The two tries awoke Kenya from their slumber who replied with two unconverted tries to narrow the score to 12-10 at the break.

On resumption, they led for the first time with a converted try before Grace Okulu appeared to have put the scored out of Madagascar’s reach. A sloppy restart that did not go the full distance was punished with try by Rasoanekena as the Lionesses held on to win.

The top four teams – South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, and Madagascar cruised to the cup quarter finals. They will battle it out on Sunday for the three available slots for next season’s World Rugby Challenger Series whose format shall ne revealed next week.

South Africa, the top seeds won all their Pool A matches without conceding a point ahead of Tunisia, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso. They will play against Senegal who finished as the second best team after the pool stage.

Kenya Lionesses, the second seeds rallied from 0-12 down to edge out Madagascar’s Makkis 22-17 in their last Pool B match. They easily beat Mauritius 61-0 in the opening match but left a lot of points on the board by missing to convert the tries some of which were dotted down under the uprights. 

They face hosts Ghana for the second time in the cup quarters. The two teams met at the pool stage and Kenya scrapped an unconvincing 10-5 win before surviving a scare by the Makkis. 

Uganda, the third seeds who have a date with Tunisia in the quarter finals finished top of Pool C after despatching Ivory Coast 48-0 in their opening match and Senegal 39-0 in the second. Their stern test was against Zambia who put up a strong resistance in the opening half before crumbling in the second.

Zimbabwe, despite putting their best performance by beating Burkina Faso 37-0 in their last match failed to qualify for the cup quarters while Mauritius finished the day by scoring three tries.

Match schedule, day two

Cup quarter finals: Kenya v Ghana, Uganda v Tunisia, Madagascar v Zambia, South Africa v Senegal; Ninth place semi-finals: Zimbabwe v Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast v Mauritius.

Day one results

Pool A: South Africa, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso

Tunisia 10 Zimbabwe 0, South Africa 38 Burkina Faso 0, Tunisia 47 Burkina Faso 0, South Africa 38 Zimbabwe 0, Zimbabwe 37 Burkina Faso 0, South Africa 40 Tunisia 0.

Pool B: Kenya, Madagascar, Ghana, Mauritius

Madagascar 31 Ghana 12, Kenya 61 Mauritius 0, Madagascar 40 Mauritius 7, Kenya 10 Ghana 5, Kenya 22 Madagascar 17, Ghana 29 Mauritius 10.

Pool C: Uganda, Zambia, Senegal, Ivory Coast

Zambia 10  Senegal 5, Uganda 48 Ivory Coast 0, Zambia 43 Ivory Coast 7, Uganda 39 Senegal 0, Senegal 17 Ivory Coast 15, Uganda 31 Zambia 7.