NAMIBIA will travel to next month’s Rugby World Cup in England as the champions of Africa.
On Saturday, August 15, in front of close to 5000 spectators at the Hage Geingob Stadium in Windhoek, the Welwitschias thrashed Zimbabwe 80-6 in the final of the Windhoek Draught African Cup competition thus retaining the title they won in Madagascar last year.
Inspired by the presence of Namibia’s president and patron of the Namibia Rugby Union, Dr. Hage Geingob, the hosts recorded 12 tries, 10 of which were converted. The Zimbabwean team only managed two penalties.
In the absence of Jacques Burger, Rohan Kitshoff led Namibia superbly and scored a hat-trick of tries to earn the Windhoek Draught man of the match award.
The result was a far cry from the close 24-20 win by Namibia 14 months ago in Antananarivo at the Rugby World Cup qualification tournament. Saturday’s one sided affair highlighted the benefits Namibia have reaped from having all their players and coaching staff in an intensive training camp for the last couple of weeks in their build-up to the Rugby World Cup. Namibia’s superior fitness, the result of two full-time strength and conditioning coaches working with the players, also played a definite role in the hosts’ dominance over Zimbabwe and their 46-13 win over Kenya the previous week.
The match was Namibia’s last before they travel to London next month. Kitshoff was satisfied with the Welwitschias’ performance but said the team still had work to do. “We are at about 80 percent of where we want to be. The four test matches against Russia, Kenya and Zimbabwe have helped a great deal with our preparations but we know that we still have a great deal of work to put in before we leave for the Rugby World Cup.”
According to head coach Phil Davies, this was Namibia’s best performance since returning from the Nations Cup last month. “I think of all the games we played this was the most accomplished performance we have produced so far especially in terms of working through our processes. We lacked a bit of patience in the first half but rectified that at halftime. To come out and score 42 points in the second half was really pleasing.”
Namibia will continue with their preparations at home before traveling to South Africa at the end of the month for a four-day training camp in Durban.
Scorers:
Namibia
Tries: Kitshoff(3), Van Wyk(2), Redelinghuys(2), Bothma, Du Plessis, Greyling, Deysel and Van Lill.
Conversions: Kotzè (2).
Zimbabwe
Penalties: Makwanya (2).
