David vs Goliath as Moria take on WHS 

Moria Private School will look to extend their fairytale run when they take on the mighty Windhoek High School (WHS) in the u19 schools rugby final at the Hage Geingob National Rugby Stadium tomorrow afternoon.

The Outjo-based Moria, which only has about 170 pupils in total, stunned Windhoek Gymnasium 39-34 in last weekend’s semi-final to book their place in the final for the first time since the school’s establishment in 1991.

According to their coach, Reino du Toit, they don’t even have a full team of players to choose from, and also had to make use of players from Otjiwarongo and a few others from the surrounding areas to put a team together.

In earlier years before Namibia’s independence, Outjo High School had reached three finals, but lost all three in 1969, 1971 and 1974. This is the first time that Moria have reached the final.

Having come this far, they will want to go one step further and claim the title for the first time but a huge challenge awaits them against WHS who will start as the overwhelming favourites.

WHS are the defending champions and by far the most successful team in the competition, having won the title 18 times and sharing it twice since Namibia’s independence.

In last year’s final, they ran out a comfortable 41-24 win against Windhoek Gymnasium, while they also swept through this year’s competition, remaining unbeaten throughout the group stages.

WHS won all eight their group matches, scoring a total of 364 points and conceding 175 for an average match score of 45-21.

These included some big victories against Elnatan (90-24), Pro-Ed Academy (61-18) and De Duinesig (50-20), but they also received some stiff challenges before overcoming Tsumeb Gymnasium 28-20, Windhoek Afrikaanse Privatskool 36-25, and Windhoek Gymnasium 16-11.

In their only league encounter against Moria in Outjo on 2 August, WHS initially received stiff resistance before easing to a 31-19 victory.

Moria started the league on fire, winning their opening five matches, which included some big victories against De Duinesig (64-3), Elnatan (57-18) and Pro Ed Academy (39-0) to take the early lead on the log.

Their winning run, however, came to an end with their defeat to WHS and when they also lost 32-20 to Windhoek Gymnasium a week later, they slipped down to third place on the log.

Moria, however, completed their league campaign with a solid 34-18 victory against Walvis Bay Private School and then stunned Namibia’s rugby community by beating Windhoek Gymnasium 39-34 in last weekend’s semi-finals to book their place in the final.

WHS, meanwhile, had a slightly easier passage to the final after beating Tsumeb Gymnasium 34-15 last weekend.

Tomorrow’s final is scheduled to start at 17h00. That match will conclude the schools finals programme with numerous other age group finals due to take place from 09h30 this morning, and continuing at 08h30 tomorrow morning.

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