Burger upbeat despite Italy mauling

Despite a record 73-6 defeat to Italy on Friday, Namibian coach Jacques Burger is confident about their chances of winning the Africa Cup and qualifying for the 2027 Rugby World Cup.

It was Italy’s biggest ever away win, beating their 64-3 victory against Portugal in 1996, while it also eclipsed their 52-8 victory against Namibia at the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

Burger, however, said the final score was not important.

“You must see how you can build and improve instead of just looking at the scoreboard and the final result. It won’t help much to play against weaker teams, and I think it’s great that we could play against two strong teams like the Pumas and Italy, where we learned a lot. I’m very excited that we could learn those lessons, and we need to play against many more strong teams like that in the future because that’s the only way we will learn,” he said.

“We lost against two strong teams, but we learned a lot about where we can improve and also picked up how they play and what works for them, while the speed of the game is also always a very big adaptation against the top-tier teams. Italy is a top team; they have good club teams that play in the United Rugby Championship, and they play in the Six Nations, so they play against top opposition each weekend. They are very sharp, and we learned a lot of good lessons from them,” he added.

“We could have easily played matches against weaker opponents where we would win comfortably. But I think that’s senseless in a way – it just builds a sense of false confidence going into the African Cup. We wanted to be tested, and we want to make sure that when we are put in tough situations, we can react and that we can dish it out as well,” he said.

Against Italy, Namibia were in trouble from the outset when Italy won a penalty try and hooker Louis van der Westhuizen was sin-binned after only three minutes.

Flyhalf Tiaan Swanepoel reduced the gap to 7-6 with two penalties, but that was all that Namibia could muster as Italy took complete control.

With their forwards winning most of the set pieces and their backs producing some scintillating attacks with great ball skills and hand-to-hand passes, they raced into a 40-6 lead by halftime before completing an 11-try romp.

Fullback Jacopo Trullo led the way with a hat trick of tries, while centres Leonardo Marin and Tommaso Menoncello, winger Simone Gesi, scrumhalf Alessandro Fusco, and replacements Mirco Spagnolo and Stephen Varney each scored one try, while there were also two penalty tries.

Flyhalf Giacomo Da Re added six conversions for a personal tally of 12 points, while Varney added one.

Namibia did not have many attacking opportunities, having to defend for most of the match, although the loose trio of captain Prince !Gaoseb, Max Katjijeko, and Adriaan Booysen was prominent at the breakdown.

The few attacking positions they set up, however, went astray due to handling errors or poor options, while they could not penetrate Italy’s tight defense.

Namibia now turn their attention to the Africa Cup in Uganda when they take on Senegal in the quarterfinals on 8 July.

The Namibian team still has to be finalized, but several other professionals from abroad like Wian Conradie and Divan Rossouw who play in the United States, Torsten van Jaarsveld from France, and the Pumas players J.C. Nel and Tiaan de Klerk can still come into the reckoning for a place in the final squad.

“The African Cup group will be selected this week. A lot of players will miss out, and I feel very sorry for them, but the road doesn’t end yet. We have to qualify now, and obviously that’s our number one goal. But there’s a lot of work to do in rugby still. And there’s a lot that lies ahead of us,” Burger said.

“So we will build towards that, and hopefully in a couple of weeks’ time we’ll walk away as African champions and we’ll be able to plan for the Rugby World Cup. But for now, the focus is just on being the best team in Africa outside of South Africa, obviously,” he added.

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