Africa-Press – Namibia. WITH most members of Namibia’s national rugby team still due to return home after winning the Africa Cup in France on Sunday, the Namibia Rugby Union has already sprung into action to organise a substantive programme in preparation for next year’s Rugby World Cup.
NRU president Petri Theron and CEO John Heynes, who were among the officials who welcomed the first group of players back home on Tuesday evening, were once again at Hosea Kutako International Airport yesterday, en route to Cape Town, where they will hold talks with South African Rugby Union (Saru) officials to organise a full programme of matches for the Welwitschias.
“We want to make sure that we don’t wait and that we are well prepared, so we need to start lining up competitions to prepare our team,” Heynes said shortly before their departure yesterday.
“We’ve got 14 months to prepare for the World Cup, so we want to organise a full programme of matches. We will hold discussions with Saru about domestic franchise competitions, while we also plan to compete in some international test matches. We should have more details to share with the nation by the end of this month,” he added.
The previous evening the first group of players arrived back in Windhoek after beating Kenya 36-0 in the Africa Cup final in France on Sunday, to book Namibia’s ticket to the Rugby World Cup for the seventh time in a row, since their debut in 1999.
NRU president Theron said it was a proud moment for the whole nation.
“We are extremely excited and I think every Namibian should be excited and proud – qualifying for a seventh successive world cup is just fantastic. We are the second best team in Africa, we showed it again, so now we are ready to get to work and prepare for the World Cup,” he said.
“The team was very well prepared and coached – you could see the experience coming through, and I think that made the difference in the end. They had some training camps, so the management and coaches also need to be commended for their hard work,” he added.
“We’ll give everything for those guys, we really want them to come back with a first win or maybe two at the World Cup, and surprise a few countries. Our cricket team has shown us the way – they surprised a few countries so we want to do the same. We just need every Namibian to stand behind us, so that we can move forward as a nation and make this happen for us,” he said.
The chief administrator of the Namibia Sport Commission, Freddy Mwiya was also present and promised the government’s support for the national team.
“This is a very exciting moment – our boys have done wonderful work to win the Africa Cup and qualify for the world cup next year. We now have a big assignment ahead of us, and from the NSC and the government’s side, we need to find the resources so that the team can prepare very well,” he said.
“We need to start preparing now, not wait for the new financial year, so they must approach our office so that we can go to the government and see how best we can avail our resources,” he added.
Some of the first group of players, meanwhile, added their views on qualifying for the World Cup.
“It’s a pretty big achievement for us, to qualify for the World Cup for the seventh consecutive time and to be the African champions. We are feeling positive about the future, so we are looking forward to it and the excitement is there within the group,” flanker Prince Gaoseb said.
“We have to be physically prepared, so I think our mental toughness will come if we just do the physical work, but I think we will be up to standard, as soon as our management gets things going we will be on a par to compete,” he added.
Lock and flanker Johan Retief said they were confident of beating Kenya in the final.
“We were very confident because the majority of the team played together at the 2019 World Cup so we have a lot of experience, but also a lot of youth. The guys have played a lot together so we knew we just needed to stick to our structures and everything will pay off and it worked out,” he said.
“We didn’t underestimate any team because we knew they would come for us – especially Zimbabwe was very physical, so we had to be focussed, and had to give everything to win those two games,” he added.
“I was just so relieved when the final whistle went because I was so tired. I remember TC (Kisting) took a quick tap, because he still wanted to score a try. I thought he should just kick the ball out, but luckily it paid off because our captain Buffy (Johan Deysel) scored a try, so it was just excitement all around,” he said.
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