Namibia’s Sevens rugby team won the Plate trophy after beating Madagascar 24-17 in the Plate final in Johannesburg on Sunday.
It was however scant reward, as the team failed in its main mission of qualifying for next year’s Olympic Games, where Sevens Rugby will be presented for the first time.
That honour went to Kenya, who beat Zimbabwe 19-17 in the Cup final, while Zimbabwe now still has a chance to qualify in an intercontinental repechage qualifying tournament.
Namibia started the tournament off in fine style by winning all its group matches on Saturday.
They beat Botswana 33-0 in their opening match and then beat Morocco 24-21 in a close encounter, before romping to a 51-10 victory against Tunisia.
On Sunday, they faced Morocco for a second time in the Cup quarterfinals, but this time Namibia came unstuck as Morocco snatched a 17-15 victory off the last move of the match.
Namibia took a 10-5 lead at halftime after tries by Zanna Botes and captain David Philander, and when Johann Tromp scored their third try early in the second half they took a 15-5 victory.
Namibia however let Morocco back in the game with some poor tackling. The North Africans scored a try to narrow the deficit to 15-12, and then off the last move of the match scored another try to snatch a 17-15 win, which was wildly celebrated by Morocco’s players and management.
Namibia were demoted to the Plate semifinals, where they got back to winning ways with a 39-5 victory against Nigeria.
Russell van Wyk opened the scoring for Namibia with a try from the kickoff and from then there was no looking back.
Zanna Botes went on to score a hattrick of tries while further tries by David Philander and Nandivatu Karuuombe sealed a resounding victory.
In the Plate final, Namibia were pushed all the way before beating Madagascar 24-17.
Namibia took a 12-5 halftime lead after tries by Russel van Wyk and David Philander, but Madagascar equalised at 12-all shortly after the break.
A try by Collin de Koe put Namibia 17-12 ahead but Madagascar once again came back to level the score at 17-all.
Namibia however finished stronger and a last minute try by Heinrich Smit, converted by Damian Stevens secured their victory.
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