Vermeulen regrets lack of action

By: SHEEFENI NIKODEMUS

SENIOR national rugby team head coach Danie Vermeulen has lamented the lack of regular playing time for his side.

Namibia lost 34-24 in friendly to a South African Universities side in Windhoek on Saturday, their only match this year.
The game served as preparation for Namibia ahead of their African qualifying matches for the 2015 World Cup in Madagascar in July, when Namibia will take on Senegal on July 4 and then Morocco or Madagascar on July 9.
Vermeulen, who took charge of the national team in March, said he would have liked to play more games in the lead up to the qualifiers to help his new-look charges to gel.
The team had been in camp for less than a week before Saturday’s game.
Nonetheless, the coach said he appreciated the workout against the SA students.
“It’s unfortunate that we didn’t have more games to help us prepare. It would have given us more chance to play together as a team,” he said.
“You could see from some of the play that the guys are not used to each other yet.”
While the match ended in defeat for the home side, the result was immaterial Vermeulen said.
“Losing was not part of the plan and the result is not too important. For a first outing it was not too bad,” he said.
Vermeulen said he had assembled a talented team and that they would pick up their game if given more opportunity.
“We made too many mistakes in defence and we also had many handling errors. You can only work on them once they play together more regularly then you can also expect better results.
“I think they are a good bunch of players and if we can just focus on limiting our errors we should do fine.”
However the game was not all doom and gloom Vermeulen said. The team was strong at set pieces, especially the scrums and line-outs.

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