Jacques Burger promised that his Namibia side “can be so much better” after they booked a place in November’s Final Qualification Tournament in Dubai with a clinical 86-29 win over UAE in the Africa/Asia play-off to keep their dream of an eighth consecutive Rugby World Cup appearance alive.
“We make so many mistakes, we let people in – we score, we let them in, we score, let them in – if we can manage the game better and be a bit more mature in the way we play, it’s going to be tough to beat us,” he said, after the convincing result at at Uganda’s Mandela National Stadium.
“The great thing is it shows where African rugby is at the moment. Zimbabwe deserved to qualify – and we’ve got another shot and we deserved that today. [We have a] lot to work on but we’ll get back to the drawing board and make sure we’re better next time.”
Next time will be the qualification tournament in Dubai. And he promised his squad will be ready. “It’s going to be extremely tough against some tough opposition. All the players will go back to their clubs, so the preparation time does make it a little bit tough.
“But, we asked for a second shot, we’ve got a second shot – now we’ve got to make it work. We need to show people the character of this team. With our backs against the wall, we’ll fight for that qualification spot.”
He has plenty to work with. Welwitschias’ veteran hooker Torsten van Jaarsveld and backrow Richard Hardwick each scored twice as the losing Rugby Africa Cup finalists scored six of the nine tries in an all-action, end-to-end first half that ended 39-22.
It was UAE, however, who got the first points on the board as number eight Emosi Vecenaua burst into wide open spaces in the third minute and turned the final defender inside out before touching down.
Their lead did not last. Injury-hit Namibia – who lost three first-choice players to injury in last weekend’s Rugby Africa Cup final defeat to Zimbabwe – ran the phases from the restart, pounding ever closer to the line before spinning the ball wide for Jurgen Meyer to skip over in the corner.
Burger later heaped praise on his patched-up team’s performance – but reckons there’s more in the tank. “We lost a lot of players and everybody we called said, ‘yes, we want to be involved’. With a short amount of time together they came up and put their hand up,” he said.
Hardwick blasted through the last defender to score his first just a few minutes after Meyer got Namibia’s side of the scoreboard rolling, before van Jaarsfeld got his two in five minutes – both of them via lineout-maul strike moves – with the clock still to tick past the opening quarter.
UAE weren’t about to give up their own dreams of a first-ever Rugby World Cup. They turned a loose ball in their favour into a race down the touchline. Desperate Namibian defence kept them out, but only briefly, as Jack Stapley darted over.
Hardwick flopped over for his second to extend Namibia’s lead again. But UAE hit back again as fly-half Max Johnson charged down opposite number Andre van der Berg’s clearance kick, hacked on and won the race to the ball for their third.
By now, though, Namibia’s forward pressure was taking its toll. Second row Oliver Kurz forced his way over for their ninth of the opening 40. Further attacking pressure sent the referee searching for a yellow card for Matthew Mills on the stroke of halftime.
Mills’ temporary absence proved costly. Replacement Aston Mukwilongo breezed past three defenders to open the scoring two minutes into the second half, and Danie van der Merwe burned round the outside to add another for Namibia before UAE were back up to full strength.
With the UAE defence tiring, Adriaan Ludick blitzed through a gaping hole to score Namibia’s ninth. Vecenaua crashed over for his second from a short-range tap penalty after AJ Kearns was sin-binned as defiant UAE kept fighting. But by now the momentum was with the Welwitschias. Mukwilongo would have the honour of touching down the their 10th, flying through midfield to win a kick chase shortly after the hour.
Replacement Armand Combrink powered over for Namibia’s 11th with eight minutes left to play. Three minutes later a flying van der Merwe was tackled just short of the tryline by UAE winger Nico Volavola – but passed off the deck to backrow Max Katjijeko, who had run a perfect support line, to make it a round dozen.
But Namibia weren’t done. A scrum penalty was kicked to touch five metres out. The following maul was predictable, inevitable and unstoppable, allowing Combrink to have the final try-scoring word and put a front-row flourish on a dominant performance.