Diergaardt still optimistic about World Cup

NAMIBIA’s Welwitschias are still on course for a good showing at next year’s rugby world cup, says their coach Johan Diergaardt.

Despite a ‘disappointing’ year-end tour of Europe, Diergaardt believes there is enough time and evidence to suggest that his team will improve in time for the global rugby spectacle in New Zealand. The Welwitschias lost both their recent tests against lowly ranked Portugal and Spain, but their coach insists there is no need to panic as he expects the team to return to form in the coming months. ‘Just because we didn’t win any games on the tour does not mean we didn’t benefit anything,’ Diergaardt told The Namibian Sport yesterday.’It’s not a setback. Its’s better to know at this stage what our shortcomings are. We still have 10 months to work on our shortcomings.’Namibia Rugby Union (NRU) Vice President Sarel Losper has reportedly said the team ‘lacked the necessary guts’ during the tour. Diergaardt said he was not in the habit of making excuses but that there were a number of factors that contributed to the poor showing of the IRB Nations Cup winners, least of all the uncertainty about whether the tour would materialise. He said the team only got the green light for the tour a day before they left for Europe, which may have had an effect on their morale. He also said that the players struggled to acclimatise to the cold European weather ahead of the two internationals.’In the end we didn’t play well as a team,’ Diergaardt said. ‘Certain individuals also didn’t play to their potential.Diergaardt pointed out that the team largely consisted of amateur players and thus it struggled to perform consistently at international level. He said it was evident from the performances against Portugal and Spain that they still had a long way to go before Namibia could be counted as a formidable rugby-playing nation. ‘One game they are brilliant and the next game they’re not good. They still have a lot to learn about professionalism.’Nonetheless Diergaardt said he was satisfied with the overall performance of the senior national rugby team over the past year. He said there was a fair share of positives to be derived from their experiences in the Vodacom Cup, while winning the Nations Cup in Romania stood out as the highlight of the eventful year.’In the end I’m happy about the overall growth of the team.’The Welwitschias will have two warm-up tests before beginning their assault of the Vodacom Cup in February. The team will then defend their Nations Cup title, followed by two tests against yet-to-be-named opponents before heading to South Africa for their pre-world cup training camp. sheefeni@namibian.com.na