Namibia’s Mission Impossible
12 Aug 2007
Namibia will rely heavily on a clutch of South Africans when they meet the Boks at Newlands, writes Gavin Rich in the Sunday Argus.
The visiting team is coached by former long serving Griquas scrumhalf Hakkies Husselman, and apart from assistant coach John Williams, who last year coached the Valke to Vodacom Cup success, former Bok assistant coach Alan Solomons is back in town and has been helping the Namibians prepare over the past few days. So too has former Springbok prop Robbie Kempson, while Gareth Wright, ex-Western Province, South Western Districts and Sharks flyhalf, is offering expert advice to the kickers.
But the Namibians are going to need all the help they can get against what is expected to be a full-strength Springbok team that will be eager to put into practice what they have been working on over the past couple of weeks.
Some 18 years ago, when they played in the Currie Cup as South West Africa, you might have expected Namibia to put up a decent fight in this first ever Test match between the two neighbouring countries.
Indeed, in their final year in the competition, 1989, they managed to finish third in competition behind eventual winners Northern Transvaal and beaten finalists Western Province. They had such well known names as the Stoop brothers and Gerhard Mans, a try grabbing wing who continued to play for Namibia for several seasons after independence.
Since then though the player base has shrunk dramatically, and if the Namibians do get clobbered by a score similar to their worst ever defeat – the 142-0 loss to hosts Australia at the 2003 World Cup – the dramatic imbalance in resources must be taken into account. Namibia currently only has 19 clubs, and there are only 1,100 players in the country.
On top of this, the Namibian administration has made it more difficult with the manner in which they sacked the two previous coaches, and Husselman has only been in charge of the Namibians for four months.
“It has been a bit quick for me, I was initially hoping to be able to work as an assistant for quite a while before taking over, but that is the way life goes,†says Husselman. “I do have good back-up staff though, and we have benefited a lot from the expertise of the assistant coach as well as the input of guys like Alan Solomons and Rob Kempson, who have given us some good pointers about things like scrumming and running lines.â€
The Namibians were pleased to welcome Kees Lensing to their camp on Saturday. The powerful loosehead, whose career appears to have gone backwards since he moved to Durban to join the Sharks, was the star of the Namibian team that pushed the South African A side, which included a number of strong Springbok contenders, in Windhoek in 2003.
There are other former Currie Cup players such as Jane du Toit in the Namibian team, but they are still missing Skipper Badenhorst, the Sharks hooker. “Rudolf (Straeuli) is not releasing him just yet. I don’t know what the story is there, but we are expecting Skipper to join us by the 18th of this month,†says Husselman.
With so much weighted against the Namibians, who have never won a World Cup match in two appearances in the main event (in 1999 and 2003), it is understandable if Husselman sounds like he is prioritising damage limitation when he answers the question about what he hopes to get out of the game.
“We are a tier 3 nation and we are playing a tier 1 nation so obviously it is going to be a very different challenge to what we are used to. At best we can expect about 30% ball possession, and the other 70% of the time we are going to have to defend. This is what we are going to face in our big World Cup games, so we must get used to it, we must see how well our defensive system holds.
“If we do well at Newlands then we will know we are on the right track. I also want to test our line-out against what must surely be the best locks in world rugby. One of the things we have been struggling with since we arrived in Cape Town is the weather. We have been training on very muddy fields and we are not used to that.â€
Namibia are in the same pool as France, Argentina and Ireland, and will obviously be pinpointing their clash with Georgia as the one they need to win to break their World Cup duck. They have done well in RWC qualifying tournaments, however, and they go to France on the basis that they beat Morrocco in a home and away play-off to decide the African leg of the qualifiers.
Their recent defeat to the South African Student side does not augur well for them, but Husselman has explained that his team were missing several frontline players that day and were also in heavy training mode so were not really ready at that stage to play a match.
By Gavin Rich, Sunday Argus
94 Comments
Pages: « 1 [2] Show All
12 Aug 2007, 17:21 pm
charo in 40days our lt gave us a oppie and i laughed at him.i told him straight “minnes lt minnes”.one of the troops a couple of days marched past him and saluted him with the “min dae” hand sign.one mad pf.
12 Aug 2007, 17:25 pm
ok fern, got to go and light a fire – time for a small braai.
thanks for the good stories.
keep well – chat later
12 Aug 2007, 17:28 pm
cheers chaar
12 Aug 2007, 20:10 pm
i see there aren’t many comments discussing the power of the namibian tight 5 or looking at the potency of their outside backs
12 Aug 2007, 20:49 pm
In the days of my youth
I was told what it means to be a man,
Now I’ve reached that age
I’ve tried to do all those things the best I can.
No matter how I try,
I find my way into the same old jam.
*Good Times, bad times,
You know I had my share;
How about patrolling the Caprivi 1972-73 with Bushmen and Ovambo trackers amongst elephant, buffalo, giraffe, puff adders, rinkals, boomslang, and bos-bev’k trigger happy troepies.
12 Aug 2007, 21:14 pm
Namibia always had a “decent” rugby team until Doos Conradie was elected the President. He is a political optimist who blames anything that goes wrong on the apartheid past. And if you stand up against him he will hit you with “you whites are only picking on me because I am black.” Under his reign the Namibian Rugby Union lost the grass (turf) on the national rugby stadium when a court order was issued against the Namibian Rugby Union being a defaulter. The IRB is also busy with a forensic audit to find out what happened to a IRB donation of about R 1.5 million that went missing.
12 Aug 2007, 21:42 pm
skoppie,
quick note before i leave this site.
i was in rundu the first time as a seventeen year old.
we had an “incident” the one night – rpg attack. it was amazing now, in hindsight, that i had no fear and was one of those typical trigger-happy troepies.
however, a few years later, with a steady girlfriend, i was in a similar position and acted with a lot more circumspection.
anyway – many years ago thank goodness.
chat tomorrow,
12 Aug 2007, 21:49 pm
Evening all,wonderful day playing in the touch tournament in Reading today,great to spend it with majority saffers,kiwis and ozzies,good rugger well done the silver ferns.
12 Aug 2007, 22:04 pm
souh afica will never ever win the world cup.They are to arrogant and racist,
12 Aug 2007, 22:05 pm
quite a ruff statement that ruffles
12 Aug 2007, 22:07 pm
skopsket, i heu8urn in hell.
12 Aug 2007, 22:08 pm
57 charo, one of those trigger happy troepies ‘buddies’ nearly blew my head off with his r1 during an argument about whether we should sleep in the elephant zone or not. He apologized a little while later.
12 Aug 2007, 22:08 pm
Hallo almal, Hoesit? Eish….
12 Aug 2007, 22:09 pm
you what?
12 Aug 2007, 22:42 pm
Seriously, whats the point of this match?
While the top teams are playing credible opposition, we are stuck with Namibia
How will scoring 150pnts vs Namibia help the Boks prepare for the RWC?
12 Aug 2007, 22:51 pm
Since Namibia is basically a light-weight team the only thing I can think of is that the Boks will use the match to try out new tactics without worrying about loosing the match.
12 Aug 2007, 22:58 pm
#65: we are playing ireland too…we are starting small. we should have played the form team of the currie cup.
I rememeber province nearly beating the 95 boks before the world cup , warm up game
12 Aug 2007, 23:07 pm
#67 boks are playing connacht,a provincial team in ireland
and scotland at murrayfield.should have played more competitive games.
12 Aug 2007, 23:19 pm
The makeup of the Springbok backline is unbalanced.
Unlike other teams, the Springbok inside center cannot kick for territory. This places huge pressure on our fly and scrum-halves.
This is precisely why the Boks favor kicking behind the scrum and ruck at nearly every opportunity.
The value of a kicking inside center was obvious for all to see during that Durban defeat to the All Blacks.
The Springboks should drop Jaque Fourie and move de Villiers to outside center, Butch to inside center and Steyn to flyhalf.
Three kickers in the team, problem solved.
12 Aug 2007, 23:38 pm
ruffle,by the looks of your doff comments and spelling you have been dopping too mutch sunshine,go sleep it off.
12 Aug 2007, 23:41 pm
John doe- kicking problem? Fourie du preez. Problem solved.
12 Aug 2007, 23:45 pm
Andre Stoop and Gerhard Mans..man those were really good players back then.
Kees will destroy whoever boks lineup for him..again.
“Rudolf (Straeuli) is not releasing him just yet. I don’t know what the story is there, but we are expecting Skipper to join us by the 18th of this month,â€
this is just BS on Rudolf’s part..no respect for smaller nations.
12 Aug 2007, 23:55 pm
The flash hotel in Swakop was the Hansa Hotel, just down the salt main road from the Woermann Haus.
13 Aug 2007, 00:01 am
Old memories huh Tackler
13 Aug 2007, 00:43 am
only hotel i recall is the kalahari sands. nicked their towel as a souvenir- years ago.
13 Aug 2007, 01:25 am
More mense!
13 Aug 2007, 02:01 am
50# Tjorts
Really?
I haven’t seen the Namibian squad yet.
Is there no ‘demographic representation’ in the team itself then?
Only in the managerial staff, baggage carriers, security personnel etc., they seem to have people of colour.
I have read somewhere that the Namibians are taking almost as many support staff as players to the WC!
Why is it that SA is the only country with this ‘transformation/quota’ requirement?
Even Zimbabwe doesn’t even enforce it, looking at its Craven Week side with only 5 black players.
13 Aug 2007, 02:02 am
aussiejoe
But the ‘Sands’ is in Windhoek!
It is a Southern Sun now, I think.
Koos
More daar.
13 Aug 2007, 02:15 am
Howzit Pete, nou eers jou reply opgetel, sien jy is al lankal terug…amper weer tyd vir vakansie!
13 Aug 2007, 02:21 am
Koos
Ja wragtag!
Ek werk nou net vir vakansie, ek se jou.
13 Aug 2007, 04:20 am
More se Pietman en Koos en ander bloggers. Wys jou n et hoe lank gelede ek in SWA was. Net Windhoek gesien. Een of ander konferensie. Ek lag my gat af as Namibia wen!
13 Aug 2007, 04:25 am
Dagse Koos & Piet,
Some scary memories of border duty being rehashed here,made me think of things long forgotten.
13 Aug 2007, 04:27 am
Howzit all…
13 Aug 2007, 04:30 am
Sounds like I’ve missed out, the biggest lights i ever saw in Namibia was bloody Rundu and then only on the way in and out – we built the base in Nepara. Sad, never got to hang with any “hospitable” Suidwesters, only the inhospitable swapo ones or the cuban imports, or the poor pb’s who wanted to be hospitable to us like a hole in the head. A very “rural” tour of the region. Fishing and pubs in my dreams.
13 Aug 2007, 04:41 am
Jeez Koos,your team is cooking with gas.
I wonder if that will be the game they show on Fox on thursday.
How was the roast?
Anyone here remember the Yati(spelling)the strip of no mans land between the SWA border and Angola,I remember playing bok bok on the Yati.
13 Aug 2007, 04:45 am
Yip, they have ran over allcomers now but we know the CC is not won in August!!
Roast was fine as usual and compliments to the chef all around was the order of the day.
My fox will only be up and running next week, not long to go now…
13 Aug 2007, 04:52 am
zaphod
I would like to go to Swakop and Henties and those coastal Namibian towns again.
Galjoen, biltong en Hansa, aijaijai…
Suidwes is lekker, ek se.
13 Aug 2007, 05:12 am
Koos,I am sure you’ve noticed how vocal Piet and I are about our teams performance….yea right.
13 Aug 2007, 05:20 am
Pete already emailed me congratulating himself on his team’s ‘great’ performance…
13 Aug 2007, 05:59 am
Hey guys spare a thought for Princess. She is on her way to Hong Kong. I am sooooo sad! Really miss her quips be they in English, French or Italian!
13 Aug 2007, 07:34 am
aj.
get a life man.
13 Aug 2007, 08:00 am
Aussiejoe
She can still hang out with us from Hong Kong. I’m sure she will.
13 Aug 2007, 08:13 am
Dont play them Jake The Boks will get injured hehehe…..Its funny how England and France can play hard warm up games and arent worried about injuries
13 Aug 2007, 09:58 am
When are they gonna let Namibia back into the curry cup, the cheetahs need some competition..
Pages: « 1 [2] Show All
Have your say
You must be logged in to post a comment.