The Walukuba Barbarians blitzed through their round of 16 clash against fellow Jinja-based side, Kakira Simbas last weekend at the Ruck Yard, with a comfortable 40-21 win in the Uganda Cup.
As a result, Walukuba booked a date with the defending champions, the Stanbic Black Pirates, which will be played at the King’s Park arena in Bweyogerere this Saturday, November 7.
For Pirates, they also won easily against the Mbale Elephants 43-3 in Mbale. In fact, as they celebrated the win, Pirates took time off to meet their former teammate, Sydney Gongodyo’s mother there.
They handed her a few souvenirs, to show that Gongodyo can never be forgotten. In fact, Pirates’ league success in June was dedicated to Gongodyo. Yet, it is hard to forget how his passing affected the entire Pirates family: They barely got over the line in what was clearly a difficult finish to them against the Buffaloes, 31-30.
On the other hand, Walukuba did not have a similar set-back as Pirates. But in an attempt to defend their 2025 sevens championship earlier this year, Walukuba went into disarray. Financial struggles affected the team’s display, even though they had been tipped to defend their crown.
Now they have a chance to make up for that lost opportunity, following the return of most of their key players, some of whom became irregular during the sevens season between July and September.
However, the question still remains on whether they have enough to knock out the Pirates. Notably, Walukuba have not beaten Pirates at King’s Park in a 15s game on all previous occasions.
In fact, in their last face-off, which was in the quarter-finals, in May, following a 48-6 first leg victory in the league in Jinja, the second leg ended 28-0. In 2025, again, Pirates beat Walukuba in all three meetings en route to bagging a third league title. That is a trend that Walukuba intend to change.
In fact, Walukuba coach, Leonard Lubambula said: “Although it will be a tough quarterfinal against Pirates at their home, we are not in bad shape. We intend to capitalize on the opportunity, as we build towards our target of playing in the Enterprise Cup next year.”
Lubambula is not fazed by the prospect of facing Pirates despite their bad record at King’s Park. He noted that going by how dominant his side was in their clash against Kakira, he remains upbeat.
He pointed out that they were dominant in the set-pieces, upon which they built a platform to win at the Ruck Yard. Yet, Lubambula is not that naive to think that Pirates and Kakira provide a similar challenge.
He noted that to do well against Pirates, they need to polish up on a few things. Perhaps, the polishing up has got to begin with their defensive strategy, which, especially in the first half, was breached by the less fancied Kakira.
Indeed, Lubambula did not skirt over the defensive lapses, many of which he attributed to the fact that they had not played 15s rugby at a competitive level for five months. It was quite evident that they were rusty.
Yet, Lubambula believes that although they at times exhibited a wrong attitude towards defence in the game against Kakira, they will have corrected those mistakes by the time they travel to Bweyogerere.
Unlike the Pirates, Lubambula has also had to grapple with the recovery protocols of his sevens players, who are key personnel in his 15s side, too.
Considering how big a squad that Pirates has, they have a backlog of players that are really fresh for the Uganda Cup because they have been resting since June, when they beat the Toyota Buffaloes to win the league. That could make a huge difference at the end of the day.
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