- Uganda Women’s Rugby Premiership – Round Four:
- Result: Nile Rapids 19-50 Black Pearls (HT:16-18)
Nile Rapids and Black Pearls played a tactically entertaining match during Round Four of the 2025 Uganda Women’s Rugby Premiership. The kicking exchanges, the breakdown contests, and the ball movement. It was a fine show of XVs rugby at Damwaters in Jinja City.
First half ended 18-16 in favour of Black Pearls; courtesy of tries from Hellen Acanit & Emilly Lekuru (2) and a Charlotte Mudoola penalty. The visitors had struck early but Nile Rapids gave them a run for their money through Tina Akello’s reliable boot (two penalties, a drop goal, and a conversion) and Jemimah Namukose’s try.
The second half is when Black Pearls showed why they are three-time defending champions of the women’s premiership. With the help of timely substitutions introducing experience off the bench, Black Pearls went into high gear and powered over their hosts in unbelievable fashion.
Suzan Adong (2), Lekuru, Grace Auma, and Lydia Namabiro scored five unanswered tries. All four are former and currently active starters of the Uganda Women’s 7s national team. To those scores, adding a Mudoola penalty and two conversions by Bushira Namutebi made it 50-19 points at fulltime.
Nile Rapids only managed a solitary Akello penalty despite having two separate yellow card advantages in the forty minutes.
“The first half also allowed Nile Rapids into a false sense of security. Mukyala (a forward) has been starting all our games on the wing. I had Bahati starting there today just to give her a chance to run in space. Bringing Mukyala off the bench, then throwing her into the forwards is something which confused Nile Rapids,” said Black Pearls coach Helen Koyokoyo Buteme after the match.
“And then, bringing the experienced players. I fed them in one at a time because I still want the players to get used to playing without them. They are going away (for 7s national team duty) next week. But again, they wanted to play so it would be unfair to deny them an opportunity. So I brought them on and, of course their experience just showed. They were able to lift the players on the pitch because the players on the pitch were starting to get tired and a bit frustrated and then that gave us the momentum. It was a sucker punch to Nile Rapids,” she added.
Nile Rapids coach Ronald Odakai simply had no solution to Koyokoyo Buteme’s arsenal.
“In general, things did not go according to our plan. My players relaxed a bit during the last ten minutes and Black Pearls’ experience coming off the bench upped the tempo and the score reached the fifty. Not as we had anticipated. But you know sometimes the experience adds that extra energy and awareness compared to my Rapids players,” Odakai admitted.
Black Pearls maintained their unbeaten run and leapfrogged Nile Rapids into second place on the table. Black Pearls will face Thunderbirds in Round Five while Nile Rapids will have a bye.
Tina Akello x-factor
The two coaches Koyokoyo Buteme and Odakai also spoke about the brilliance of Nile Rapids’ Tina Akello as a kicker and galvanising factor.
“Pearls was very indisciplined and it is a recurring problem right from our first game. The teams we played earlier, Ewes and Panthers, did not have a good kicker so I guess we were not punished for it. But in this case, I mean, Nile Rapids had a kicker — Tina Akello. We discussed this in training, worked on our backfoot, the tackling but somehow I think the girls came into this game with the mindset that they are going to win easily because we beat them easily last year when we came here so they were not doing what they needed to do. Credit to Tina, she’s got an excellent boot and she punished us,” Koyokoyo Buteme said.
Odakai further acknowledged Akello’s leadership, motivation and influence on her Nile Rapids teammates.
“One; her (Tina Akello) leadership and commitment. She adds that bit of maturity to the players. Plus, her kicking boot keeps us pushing because whenever we are close and we are a few points behind, we believe we can still do it. And her experience with the national team also keeps on encouraging the other players. You know when she is around, the environment is a bit different because you can realise there’s game control and maturity when she’s around,” Odakai said.
Akello kicked fourteen of Nile Rapids’ nineteen points against Black Pearls. Three penalties, a drop goal, and a conversion to record an eighty-three per cent kicking accuracy — the highest in the premiership.
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