The unstoppable Injera

Hours before his wildest dreams came true, Collins Injera did what he always does before a game. He put on some feel good music, to help him get his head into the zone he needed to be in. Once there, he blacked out everything else and pictured in his head the game they would be playing against France the next day.

That season, he had piled pressure on himself to break the record for number of tries made in the World Rugby Sevens Series, and it had cost him, because he had been so focused on breaking the record that he was ironically scoring less than he was used to and it was affecting his performance. So that night when he got into the zone, he had accepted that if it happened, it happened, and if not, then that was fine too.

By the time he was out of the zone, he was set. Relaxed, he slept like a baby. In the morning, he went to his happy place in his mind, a place of positive thoughts only. Later that day, he became the highest try scorer in the world. It was the happiest moment of his life. It could not have happened at a better time.

“When I got the ball to score the try, the person who passed the ball to me was my elder brother. He was the one who had made me start playing rugby because he was playing it. He has been my rugby critique, my adviser in rugby and in life. So receiving the last pass from him to score the try, which lifted me to be the top try scorer in the world was an amazing moment.

“What makes it even more special is that my parents were there to witness. I had tried so hard to break the record and failed, but it ended up happening when my parents were there, so I think God was just holding it back for that moment. It was very special,” he says.

Together with his brother, Humphrey Kayange, they were awarded the Order of Golden Warriors (OGW) for that performance in the 2008–09 IRB Sevens World Series.

Now 33, he has a list of accomplishments and is not about to slow down.

The training

He has hardly broken a sweat when I meet him early in the morning after what looked like an absolutely gruelling training session at the Harlequin grounds along Ngong Road. While most of Nairobi is just getting up, the national rugby sevens team is, as usual, already hard at work, training. They are currently preparing for the Dubai 7’s.

“We have taken a break earlier today,” he says. It is around 8.15am now and he scoffs at the idea of taking a moment to catch his breath, preferring to have the interview before having breakfast with the rest of the team.

I quickly learn to steer clear of the word ‘difficult’ when talking to him. Any time it comes up, he replaces it with ‘challenging’. He is a no-nonsense, disciplined man, but is somehow also easy-going at the same time, breaking into deep belly laughs at the playful responses he peppers our conversation with.

Most interesting five seconds

The more successful you are, the bigger the failures you are likely to have, and Injera is no different.

“I made a poor call on the field and we lost that game against Wales in Hong Kong 7s during the 2015/2016 season. We had been having a very difficult season and if we would have won against Wales, we would have qualified for the first quarter finals of that season, but I made a poor decision on the field which eventually cost us the game.

“I was supposed to get the ball, kick it out and the game would end. Instead I decided to get the ball, be cheeky and start running back towards my goal line thinking that the time would stop, because I looked up at the clock and it was like five seconds remaining,” he says.

What happened next was edge of the seat action, like a scene straight out of a movie.

“So I…we usually call it scratch or start the ball…I started running with the ball towards my side, knowing that by the time I got to the other side of the goal post, the time would be up and that is when I discovered five seconds is a lot of time. I was chased down, tackled, Wales got a penalty and they managed to score at the very end, at the buzzer.”

Family man at heart

A soft-hearted family man at heart, he considers his most difficult moment was when he missed the birth of his first child.

“I had travelled to Vegas in the US to play rugby. You know, you never know with those things, so she came early when I was still there. It was a call I made and now I have to live with it,” he says. He was so excited about it he couldn’t sleep on the flight back home, going over the photographs he had been sent. “I couldn’t wait to hold her!”

That child is now an eight-year-old girl and he made sure he did not miss the births of the other two, who are boys, aged four years and five months old. 

“Of course you always want to be in the delivery room for the birth of your first child,” he says. “For my second one, I had to cancel and did not travel with the team. But the funny thing is that the team went and when they came back he had not been born. He was born a week later! But I did not want to risk it that time. I think it is one of those moments as a parent you should witness if you are together with your partner. If you can be there, be there.”

Despite his impressive list of accomplishments, he considers family to be his greatest accomplishment. “Having your own family in this generation is quite difficult,” he says, before he quickly corrects himself. “Challenging! It’s challenging. I rarely use the word difficult. Challenging is good because at least you know you can overcome. Difficult means it probably won’t be done.

“Family has really grounded me, because I know there are people who are depending on me and looking up to me. It has shaped me as a man.

“I unwind by spending time with my family. I leave here and get back home after a long day to those smiles which are not fake. They are genuine. They are just happy to see you.”

He met his wife at the Multimedia University campus. They have been together for 11 years and married for eight years. They were friends for about three years before they started dating in 2008. “I think marriage all comes down to understanding each other and the mutual respect you have for each other. And of course love. You can’t live with someone you don’t love,” he says.

Life struggles

Balancing family and his love for rugby has been a continuous struggle, although junk food might be another. “Junk food! Wings, burgers… I struggle with them.”

One would imagine that he has the ultimate diet and fitness regimen, but it turns out he only trains when training with the team on the field and his biggest commitment to diet is making sure that he is full after a meal.

“On a good season, sometimes I train even six days a week. I wake up at five every day and come for training. I don’t do personal training, but I make sure that when I am here, I am totally focused on the training session. 

“The struggle is the balancing act – balancing life and rugby is usually very tricky. Sometimes you find yourself leaning towards one side. Prioritising helps though.

Where it all began

He lives and breathes sport and it seems he would have excelled in whatever sport he chose, and just happened to land onto rugby. If he wasn’t in rugby, he would have been a football player or a rally driver.

“In high school, I used to try my hand in hockey, handball, basketball and volleyball. In primary I used to be very good at football but when I went to join the football team at Vihiga High School there was a huge crowd waiting to join. I didn’t love crowds, so I decided to go back to the dorm.

“As I was going back, I saw a small group of guys throwing around an oval-shaped ball,” he continues. “That was when it hit me that was rugby, the sport that my brother had told me he played. So I went there and at the first touch of the ball, I got hooked and that was it. So getting into rugby was sort of accidental.”

Today, he is one of the most accomplished rugby players in the world, holding second place for number of tries scored on the World Rugby Sevens Series.

“It was not rocket science. Just focusing on the process. Even when I started, it had never been that I really wanted to be this big rugby player. Of course I had little goals, just scoring and enjoying the game. Doing that comes with so many things. When you focus on the process, that is where you get your opportunities.

“And life is all about opportunities. It is never about the opportunity of a lifetime. It has always been about the lifetime of an opportunity. I believe opportunities will always be there. You miss one, another one will come. It is just a matter of how long will it be there? The lifetime of that opportunity. What you do when it pops up,” he says.

His current ambition is to play at his second Olympic Games and also become a big farmer. When his body gives in and he has to retire, he will focus on mentoring. “Trying to better myself as a man keeps me going. To be a better dad, to be a better husband, in the field, trying to be better than yesterday. My ultimate ambition is to be an inspiration to future generations.”