Oranjemund Rugby Club won the first leg of the Ongos Valley Sevens Rugby Tournament at Keetmanshoop on Saturday after a convincing 19-5 victory against Ocean Swallows in the final.
That capped a successful weekend for the Oranjemunders who went through the tournament unbeaten after winning all their round-robin matches.
During the group stages, they had already posted a comfortable 26-12 victory against Swallows from Lüderitz and it was a similar story in the final as they took the lead from the start.
The honours were quite even in the first half but Oranjemund took a 5-0 lead into half-time after a try by Rodward Stefanus.
A try and conversion by Wayne Jochimsen stretched their lead to 12-0, but Swallows reduced the deficit to 19-5 after Vilho Inkono broke away to touch down. That gave the Swallows fans plenty to cheer about, but their hopes were cut short when Wayne Jochimsen cut through Swallows’ defence for a great try which he also converted to seal the match for Oranjemund.
There was great joy in the Oranjemund camp as Ongos marketing manager Abed Erastus handed the trophy to Oranjemund captain Gino Wilson. Their victory was celebrated all the way back to Oranjemund in their team bus.
Earlier, in the group stages, Oranjemund got off to an impressive 21-0 victory against Keetmanshoop Rugby Club, but were pushed all the way by Nust before winning a close encounter 17-14.
Oranjemund completed the group phase with another comfortable 26-12 victory against Ocean Swallows to finish on top of the log with six points from three matches.
The other three teams all finished on two points with one win and two losses each.
Keetmanshoop beat Nust 24-10 but lost 14-5 to Ocean Swallows and 21-0 to Oranjemund; Nust beat Ocean Swallows 24-17 but lost 24-10 to Keetmanshoop and 17-14 to Oranjemund; and Ocean Swallows beat Keetmanshoop 14-5, but lost 24-17 to Nust and 26-12 to Oranjemund.
In the semi-finals, Oranjemund posted another impressive 24-10 victory against Keetmanshoop to book a place in the final, while Ocean Swallows encountered tougher opposition before beating Nust 17-10.
In the play-off for third place, Nust beat Keetmanshoop 21-7.
Only four teams competed in the opening leg of the Ongos Sevens tournament at the Westdene Stadium at Keetmanshoop, but the tournament gave an opportunity for players from the south to expose their potential, while there was some great talent on display.
A southern dream team of 12 players was selected after the tournament, with the selected players now due to be developed further in the Namibia Rugby Union’s (NRU) structures.
The tournament was also attended by some leading rugby officials including NRU vice president Johan Diergaardt, NRU administrator William Steenkamp, former Unam coach David Philander, and Keith Allies and Magiel Booysen of Western Suburbs.
The second leg of the Ongos Sevens Rugby Tournament will be held at Swakopmund next Saturday, before the final leg in Windhoek on 5 October.
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