Welwitschias’ preparations take shape 

The Namibian Welwitchias will play two matches in Windhoek and one in Walvis Bay in June in preparation for the Africa Cup which takes place in Uganda from 6 to 20 July. 

At a press conference in Windhoek yesterday, Namibia’s Director of Rugby, Jacques Burger said that the local-based Welwitschias will play Uganda at Walvis Bay High School at the coast on 14 June, and the Airlink Pumas at the Hage Geingob Stadium on 21 June.

A full-strength Namibian national side will then take on Italy in an international test match at the Hage Geingob Stadium on 27 June. 

Burger said they will mostly use local-based players for the Uganda match, while Namibia’s foreign-based professionals will be available for the next matches, depending on when their club seasons finish. 

“The reason why we spoke to Uganda is to get a feel of the difference between African rugby and the Africa Cup specifically, and teams like Italy and the Pumas. They’re a bit more set in their ways, a bit more structured, so we’ve got to get used to the way African teams play. They like to throw the ball around and do unpredictable things,” he said. 

“We’ll definitely get a camp going and get everybody involved. We’re doing our fitness testing this afternoon at the Windhoek Gymnasium field. We want to make sure that the players are still at the level they were before we left them to go over to their clubs and obviously push from there to see where we’re falling behind, if we’re on the right track and what we can work on,” he added. 

“I think the challenge is to bridge the gap between the local players and the foreign-based players. We don’t want to look past players in Namibia, we want to give them a fair opportunity to put up their hand and say, listen, I want to play for this country. That’s why we want to get them in early, to see where we are at. We had a really decent idea of where we were after the Boland game, but its really hard to judge a player on a once-off match. We need to get that continuity building up to the June matches, so we will work hard and make sure that we are well prepared, and once it’s game time, we’ll be firing,” he said. 

Burger said there was still a lot of room for improvement in the standard of play in local club rugby.

“There’s I think the intensity of the way we play is still at a low level in club rugby, so it’s definitely something that we need to up if we want to compete against the top sides,” he said. 

“Wanderers have been dominating the league so far, so we’d like to see a more level playing field and everybody competing hard on weekends. We’d like to see more competitive games leading up to the June matches so that the players are ready for the big matches,” he added. 

Namibia’s national u20 side, meanwhile, is hard at work preparing for the Barthes u20 Africa Cup in Harare from 19 to 27 April and Burger said he was excirted about their prospects. 

“I’m very excited about the u20 team – a lot of thought has gone into how we can improve our junior level and I think a lot more can be done, and its extremely important that we get the guys ready to step up and assist them,” he said. 

“They’ve had two warm-up matches and won both comfortably – 52-0 against the u20 Limpopo Bulls and 37-24 against the u20 Blue Bulls Presidential team, and I think the coaches Johan Zaayman and Jood Opperman are doing a great job and they’ve got a great squad together,” he added. 

Burger said they are aiming to win the Barthes Cup. 

“It’s extremely important that we send a strong team to the Barthes Cup and make sure that we win it, that’s the main goal – there’s no second place, if we play for second place then we are in the wrong game, we want to win it comfortably,” he said. 

“It’s not going to be easy, there’s some strong competition that will be ready to gun for us, everybody is out to gun Namibia down in Africa, but we will go out there and do our best. I’m very confident and I’m excited to see what they can do at the Barthes Cup,” he added.