Africa-Press – Namibia. THE Namibian club rugby finals will finally take place tomorrow following a lengthy disciplinary hearing that saw Western Suburbs replacing Wanderers in both the Premier League and Reserve League finals.
Wanderers beat Suburbs in both the Premier League and Reserve League semifinals on 16 October, but Suburbs appealed, saying that Wanderers had used players who were not properly registered with the NRU.
After a drawn-out process the NRU finally ruled in favour of Suburbs last Saturday, ordering that Wanderers forfeit their semifinal matches and be replaced by Suburbs, who were their opponents in both matches.
Suburbs will now take on Unam in the Premier League final at the Hage Geingob Stadium tomorrow, while their second team will play Kudus II in the reserve league final, but both Suburbs and Unam have been considerably weakened due to the delay.
They are already without their national players, who are currently competing in the Stellenbosch Challenge where Namibia will take on Zimbabwe in tomorrow’s final, while exams and work commitments have also prevented others from being available. Suburbs coach Johan Diergaardt yesterday said he was still trying to finalise his team.
“We are still trying to get a team together, some of the players have already gone home after finishing their exams, while others are still writing. We only have 22 players available and they don’t even cover all the positions, and we are still waiting to hear if we may use some second team players in the first team,” he said.
“The whole disciplinary hearing was a mess, and I feel it could have been handled much better. They should have reached a verdict much earlier, it’s an open-book decision. So I am unhappy about the situation, but we are doing it for the sake of our sponsors and the university that has invested in us throughout the year,” he added.
Due to the uncertainty and unavailability of players their preparations this week have also been affected, Diergaardt said. “We were not able to train on Tuesday, because we only had 12 players at training, but we’ll still try and hold a training session before Saturday’s final,” he said.
“But we deserve to be in the final, we only lost one match the whole season and that was by only two points,” he added. Whether Suburbs deserve to be in the final is another matter and their coach Jackey Bock admitted that they were quite fortunate.
“We are fortunate to be in the final and I must say I’d prefer to win on the field than in the boardroom. Because of all the uncertainty it has been very difficult to get the guys motivated, while we’ve also lost a lot of players who wont be available,” he said.
“Some of the players have already gone home while others are writing exams, while we will also miss our prop Andreas Shikoneni who was called up to the national side in Stellenbosch after Gerhard Opperman got injured. That’s a big blow because props are a gold commodity in Namibian rugby,” he added.
During this season’s league campaign, Unam held the upper hand over Suburbs, beating them 36-29 on 9 October, but with both teams fielding weakened sides tomorrow, the depth of each squad will probably be more important in determining the winners.
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