Africa-Press – Namibia. NAMIBIA Rugby Union president Corrie Mensah believes that Namibia will still qualify for next year’s Rugby World Cup, despite financial problems which have bedevilled their preparations.
South Africa Rugby earlier this week confirmed that Zimbabwe, Kenya and Georgia will compete in the second tier of the Currie Cup this year, which kicks off on 1 April and will provide all three nations with invaluable preparation in their quest to qualify for the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
Zimbabwe and Kenya will field full-strength teams in the Currie Cup, and with each nation due to play at least nine matches in the Currie Cup, they should be well primed for the Africa Cup in France in July, where the winning nation will qualify for next year’s World Cup.
This will give them a great advantage ahead of Namibia, who will not be competing due to a lack of finances, as was already reported by The Namibian two months ago.
“We had negotiations with the South African Rugby Union, but we would have had to pay for all our expenses as well as that of the visiting teams and it’s just too expensive. It’s quite a setback, because the Currie Cup would have provided a great opportunity for our local players to get more exposure and to raise their level and conditioning,” Mensah was quoted as saying.
Mensah on Wednesday, however, said he remained confident about Namibia’s chances. “It’s a pity that we won’t be able to play in the Currie Cup, because it would have given our local-based players much more exposure at a higher level, but we have been pro-active in planning ahead, so that we can enter the Africa Cup in a determined and confident frame of mind,” he said.
“For me it’s non-negotiable that we have to qualify for the World Cup, and I firmly believe that we will once again reach our objective,” he added.
Mensah said they had finalised two friendly matches at home and away against Griqualand West, while they hoped to organise more friendly matches before the Africa Cup.
“We have finalised the Griquas matches with the home match in Windhoek to take place on 26 March and the away match in Kimberly on 14 May. Then we are still negotiating with other Currie Cup teams to try and organise more friendly matches, when some of these teams have off weekends in the Currie Cup competition. But it will be a costly exercise, because we will have to cover all their expenses, so it will depend on how our negotiations with sponsors go,” he said.
Namibia currently has 26 professional players playing abroad in countries ranging from England, France, Spain, Poland and Romania in Europe to Russia, the United States, Israel and South Africa. As such, they have sufficient depth, but Mensah said it was important to try and raise the fitness and skill levels of the local-based players so that they will be on a par if any of local-based players are selected for the Africa Cup.
“We will soon announce a group of 35 local based players who will be part of our high performance programme at the NRU headquarters, where they will do gym sessions with Sergio de la Harpe and field sessions with Chrysander Botha. I also had a very constructive zoom meeting with national coach Allister Coetzee this morning and although I cant give the details on that yet, he will join us later this year and has assured us of his commitment and that we will be 100 percent ready and prepared.
“We have also been invited to send a team to compete at a Blue Bulls competition over the Easter weekend, so depending on sponsors, we plan to send a team of local based players there, and then there is also a possibility of a training camp and another match in South Africa in June,” he added.
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