It was a bleak weekend for Namibian rugby as the national u20 team were thrashed 95-6 by Canada at the u20 Rugby Challenger Cup in Santiago, Chile on Friday.
The Challenger Cup has replaced the World Rugby u20 Trophy for second tier rugby nations where Namibia competed with distinction over the years, but Friday saw a new nadir for Namibia as they suffered their heaviest ever defeat at the tournament.
Canada attacked from the start, taking a 52-6 lead at half time, and eventually ran in 15 tries in a dominant display of forward power and fast running backs. Wingers Brian Barron and Malin Hazl led the way with three tries each, while fly-half Joe Kaufmann added 10 conversions for a personal tally of 20 points.
Namibia nearly took the lead in the third minute when winger Soobramoney Sammy just stepped into touch before diving over in the corner, but from then on it was one-way traffic as Canada took complete control.
Namibia didn’t help their cause with poor defence and basic errors and their misfortune was underlined when they missed two great try scoring opportunities in the dying minutes.
First centre Janco Bredenhann broke through the defence to go over but he couldn’t dot down as a Canadian held the ball up, and then eighthman Roche Brand broke clear but his pass to Sammy went into touch.
The hosts, Chile, meanwhile also got off to a strong start with a 83-19 win against Hong Kong China, while Romania beat Brazil 27-26, and Belgium beat Portugal 22-15.
Namibia’s defeat underlined the steady decline of the national u20 team over the past decade. For three years in a row from 2014 to 2016 Namibia achieved their best ever results at the World Rugby u20 Trophy, coming fourth on each occasion.
In 2016 they lost the third place playoff 44-30 to Fiji; in 2017 they lost 34-12 to Uruguay in the bronze medal match; and in 2018 they lost 67-36 to Portugal in the bronze medal match.
That, however, was the last time that they competed at the World Rugby u20 Trophy, as Kenya and Zimbabwe overtook Namibia as the dominant African nations in the ensuing years.
In 2019 Namibia reached the u20 Africa Cup final where they lost 21-18 to Kenya, while Kenya retained the title in 2021 after 2020 was cancelled due to Covid 19.
In 2022, Zimbabwe became the African champions when they beat Namibia 19-14 in the final, while they retained the title the next year after beating Kenya 21-7 in the final.
Kenya were back on top in 2024 after beating Zimbabwe 28-13 in the final, while Namibia finally won the title again last year after a seven year absence, when the competition was played on a round robin basis. In their group matches, Namibia beat Zimbabwe 41-22, Kenya 32-22 and Tunisia 81-7.
Kenya, however, once again won the Africa trophy this year when they beat Namibia 33-14 in the final.
Namibia’s next match is against Portugal on Wednesday.
