Africa-Press – Namibia. NAMIBIA’s national under 20 rugby team fine-tuned their preparations for next month’s u20 Africa Barthes Cup with an impressive 31-26 victory against Unam on Saturday.
The juniors were well in control at half time, leading 21-12, but Unam made a stirring comeback to reduce the deficit to two points, before a late drop goal by Geraldo Beukes sealed the juniors’ victory.
Beukes opened the scoring with an early penalty, and after dominating the early possession, they went 8-0 ahead when eighthman Joe Losper burst over from a scrum for an unconverted try.
Unam opened their account when flanker Berry Gande broke away to touch down after a 30m run, but Beukes added another penalty as the juniors went 11-5 ahead midway through the first half.
Unam tried hard to get back into the game, but Namibia u20 left wing Owen Hawanga intercepted the ball and ran more than half the length of the field for an unconverted try.
The juniors kept on attacking with Beukes narrowly missing out on a try when he was dived into touch, but they stretched their lead to 21-5 when prop Iyambo Tshuuya went over from a maul. Just before the break Gande added his second try when he went over from a line-out unopposed and with Brandt adding the conversion they reduced the gap to 21-12.
Tshuuya went over for his second try early in the second half after a hand-to-hand forward attack and with Nathan Isaacs adding a fine conversion from the touchline, the juniors were well in control with a 28-12 lead.
Unam, however, made a great comeback with Gande bursting over for his third try after an explosive run by Darryl Wellmann, and when Shaquille Januarie went over after intense pressure, they were just two points behind at 28-26.
Namibia u20, however, had the final say when Beukes put over a drop goal with the last kick of the game.
After the match Namibia u20 coach Chrysander Botha said he was pleased with their performance.
“I think we had a good start to the match with our starting 15 laying the foundation and at one stage we were leading 28-12, but in the second half we made a lot of changes to give everyone a run, and I think we lapsed a bit in certain facets of the game,” he said.
“I think there’s still a lot of work for us to do when it comes to the set-pieces, the line-outs and scrums, but I think we did a lot of the basics well and that kept us in the game. It just goes to show that if you trust the system and stick to the structure then sooner or later there will be mistakes or line-breaks and you just have to capitalise on the opportunities and we did that today,” he added.
Botha also paid tribute to Unam on a fine comeback.
“Unam is a championship team and they showed in the last 30 minutes that’s when they really play and they’ve got the type of players that can win games for them. They tried their utmost and made it difficult for us, but I think when we made the changes and put our starting 15 back on the field, we got more composure and stability and structure to the game that allowed us to seal the victory,” he said.
“But yes, Im disappointed that we let that lead slip, but it’s a learning curve for these young guys and it just shows that you can never take your foot off the gas, once you have a lead you need to capitalise and put that team away,” he added.
Unam coach David Philander said the match had served its purpose.
“It was a hard game and they tested us well in certain areas where we thought we needed some practise so it was enlightening for us and for them as well. Being a friendly, the winning margin was not so important, we just wanted to play to our structures and see what we can improve on so if we won the game it would have been a bonus,” he said.
“It was our first pre-season game of the year, and we were a bit short of preparation time – we only had a week of training as a team, so it was a bit hard to get the guys back into the mix. But we will come back on Tuesday and just iron out a couple of wrinkles and then hopefully next Saturday we’ll be banging,” he added.
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