The Kenya Cup pits Kenya's top teams , among them Impala, Mwamba, Harlequins, Nondescripts , Meam Machine, Nakuru RFC , Mombasa Sports club and Ulinzi. The Eric Shirley shield is contested by second tier teams. The Enterprise cup is played on a Knockout basis and is contested by teams from all over the country and a couple from Uganda. Several one days tornaments are organized by individual clubs. These include The Impala floodlit tournament which has more of a party atmosphere than a Rugby atmosphere. Other tournaments include the Rift Valley ten a side tournament hosted by Nakuru RFC and Driftwood sevens hosted by Mombasa Sports club.

Kenya like other third world countries continues to lag light years behind the top Rugby playing Nations. This is mainly due to lack of a professional league in the country and due to the fact that rugby unlike other popular sports like Football(soccer) and basketball , involves a myriad of technical intricacies which countries like Kenya are yet to master. The advent of professionalism in the game has widened the gap between Nations like Kenya and the advanced Nations such as England. Lack of a professional league means that the top Kenyan players can only play part time while training only 2 hours a day. It also means that several of the countries' most talented players quit playing early either immediately after high school or in their early twenties, due to lack of incentive. Indeed the average age of Kenya's national team is around 23/24 years.

Kenya is however more adept at playing the sevens version of the game. They have shown this at several international tournaments such as the Dubai sevens and the commonwealth games.

Kenya's 1999 sevens team

Mwamba RFC was formed in 1978 as kenya's first independent team for indigenous Kenyan's. The teams all black strip was deliberately selected to counter the all white strip worn by Nondescripts RFC. Mwamba soon became Kenya's most popular team and soon a rivalry developed between Nondies and Mwamba. Mwamba was instrumental in the growth of the game in Kenya. It formed the backbone of Kenya's national team , among them Jimmy Owino, Arthur Kibisu, Andy Mwenesi , Pete Belsoi ,Chris Onsotti and speedster Pritt Nyandatt. As Kenya's economic fortunes took a turn for the worst in the late 80s, so did the fortunes of Mwamba. Being a self supporting team , they were unable to keep their best players many of whom left to seek greener pastures at institutional teams such as Stanchart RFC and Barclays RFC.

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Impala RFC is one of the Countries recent success stories. It has risen from the ashes of obscurity o the forefront of Kenya's rugby thanks to an influx of several talented players.