Talking to women’s league titleholders KCB Nkumba-A head coach Tonny Lakony for an exclusive interview to ascertain his thoughts about the current state in which volleyball activities in the country have been pegged.
It has been a while since we last had competitive volleyball owing to the impacts of the deadly Coronavirus. The Head of state in a public announcement on Sunday, September 20th, 2020, that sports activities in the country would be given a go-ahead but with a few guidelines to be followed.
We got in touch with coach Tonny Lakony who is the head coach of the women’s league champions, KCB Nkumba-A to find outs his views about volleyball in the country.
How have you been preparing your team in case competitive volleyball resumes?
“Yeah, I have been in touch with the teams throughout this period. The only thing they have been doing is to work out on their own and try to build themselves on their own.”
“We share a few things to help them mentally and physically and morally we keep in touch but for the most part, they are the ones now responsible for themselves.”
“The good news is that some of them are back to the university but those are still not playing because it is not yet okayed but some are back especially the finalists.”
“Of course, it is a challenge they can not have the discipline as you would want to keep in shape.”
Do you see the volleyball league transpiring this year?
“I think it is most unlikely that the league will resume anytime soon because the federation has not gotten the go-ahead basically.”
“It is a bit frustrating because other teams, other disciplines are already training and playing hard. Soccer is already in competition. The playoffs were on.”
“So, for volleyball that is a non-contact sport, I think if we pushed a bit harder, we should have been able to already have started playing, at least tournaments or something.”
“But as for the league, I highly doubt it will happen this year given the circumstances.”
Talking about Volleyball being a low-risk non-contact sport.
“Actually, our government categorized it under low-risk sports. So, by virtue of that, we should really be in-play.”
“Of course, the biggest hindrance that was there was the testing bit of it. You can not ask these clubs to test these players every two weeks.”
“I do not think even the football clubs that have a lot of money in their system can do that.”
“That was the biggest stumbling block. But if we were to go around it, I don’t know how much the federation pushed for them to consider.”
We are hosting the U20s next month and the national team is camping in Insingiro, any comments on that?
“When you have such opportunities, you want to give yourself the best possible chance to compete.”
“The challenge is we have girls who went for under 17 last year, those are the ones who are now going to do under 20.”
“But most of them are candidates right now, and they are in schools in the central.”
“Now if you want to use those girls, because the school cannot allow them to go for two months, 6 weeks camp in Isingiro when others are studying.”
“But if you had the camp in Kampala then you could work out a way that would make it possible to have these girls come for training maybe twice or three times a week.”
“This is a period when the Indoor is free idle, it’s only FUBA using it. What is it that our federation can not do to ensure that we train from the Indoor.”
“One week at the indoor is nothing. Even if it was two months, it would not be enough, but it would be something.”
What are you doing to help the team in Isingiro since you are far away?
“When the girls go to Isingiro, any technical supports that other coaches can come and ship in to help is not possible.”
“We can only give them moral support. Even the well-wishers who could have come and given a box of water but it very far so, it goes under the carpet like that.”
“And even the press and media, it is hard because you want to publicise this, let the public know.”
What do you have to say for Salma Kairungi after her assignment as the manager for the U20 ladies?
“She is going to help, it will be a boost for the team, she is good with people, but it also comes very late.”
“When they were announcing this, they would have invited her a long time ago.”
“She is going to help the team, she is going to do a lot, it is going to be a very big boost for the team, and it will offload a lot of things from the coaches.”
Coach Tonny Lakony believes that we need to take advantage of opportunities like this when we host continental games and also mentioned that he will most likely travel to Isingiro to join KCB Nkymba-A manger to provide support to the U20 ladies.
We also asked him what we should expect from KCB Nkumba-A come next season and this is what he said.
“Well it is going to be challenging for everyone, we do not know how the teams come back but we have been planning and we will see how it goes.”
“We will still come back, of course, competitive, we are still very ambitious. We will make sure that we achieve the goals that we set out to achieve this year.”
“Our plans going forward especially the long term plans are still in place. We will not deviate from those, to compete at a very high level and go ahead and professionalize the team.”
KCB Nkumba-A are holders of the women’s league title. Contention for the title is long overdue but following the current global crisis, it all a waiting game.
