The work starts now, player of the match Godfrey Muzanargwo said, after the Sables returned to the top table of international rugby tournaments for the first time since 1991 after successfully defending the Rugby Africa Cup title they won last year at the same venue in Uganda.
“For us, now, it’s back to the drawing board,” the second row said at the end of an intense encounter. “We don’t want to go to the World Cup just to be there. We want to go there and compete and put Zimbabwe on the map.”
The credit for Zimbabwe’s impressive performance was due, he said, to “the support from back home”, pointing particularly to, “our coaches, doing the work behind the scenes and all the team-mates for pushing us forwards”.
The two sides had matched each other point for point, try for try, and card for card in the first half of a tension-fuelled final that was a fitting end to the tournament.
Namibia’s Cliven Loubser and Zimbabwe’s Ian Prior traded early penalties, before the Sables’ centre Kudzai Mashawi finished a perfectly judged attacking lineout strike move to put the defending champions ahead. A dummy opened the space for him, but he still had to hold off several defenders to score under the posts.
Another penalty extended Zimbabwe’s lead after Namibia nine Jacques Theron picked up a yellow card. But Jacques Burger’s side survived the rest of their numerical inferiority unscathed – and hit back through captain Prince !Gaoseb immediately after Zimbabwe backrow Jason Fraser was sin-binned for deliberate knock-on. Loubser converted to level the first-half scores at 16-16.
Zimbabwe looked to have broken the game in their favour in the third quarter. Second-row Godfrey Muzanargwo forced his way over five minutes into the second period following a series of short-range Zimbabwe raids on Namibia’s line.
And, on the hour, Brandon Mudzekenyedzi picked the perfect line to extend their lead to tighten their grip on the trophy.
But it was loosened almost immediately, as Jay-Cee Nel broke clear to score in the corner from the restart to close the gap. And – with Zimbabwe starting to find themselves on the wrong side of the referee in their efforts to get hold of the ball – replacement Adriaan Booysen burst through to touch down under the posts. Suddenly, with 10 minutes to play, the final was a two-point game.
Tiaan Swanepoel had a chance to take Namibia into the lead in the 79th minute. But he fired a long-range penalty just wide of the posts. That would be their last chance.
Namibia will face UAE next weekend in the Asia/Africa play-off for the right to progress to the Final Qualification Tournament in November.
Earlier, Benjamin Caminati and Kamil Bouregba both scored first-half tries for Algeria as they outmuscled Kenya 15-5 in a gritty third-place play-off in Kampala.
Mamodou Ndiaye scored the golden try in the 108th minute of a thrilling fifth-place final to give Senegal a dramatic 33-28 victory over Morocco. And hosts Uganda avoided relegation from the top tier of African rugby with a 37-17 win over Côte d’Ivoire – their first victory of the tournament – to claim seventh.