NAMIBIA finished fourth at the World Rugby U20 Trophy 201 after going down 12-34 in the third place play-off to host Uruguay on Sunday.
Uruguay managed a repeat of the bronze medal they won in Lisbon two years ago with a relatively comfortable victory over Namibia, while Japan beat Portugal 14-3 in the final to reclaim their place amongst the elite of international age-grade rugby at the first attempt after winning the tournament for the second time in their history.
Number eight Santiago Civetta bagged a brace of tries to help Uruguay to victory in the bronze medal match.
Los Teritos were in front as early as the third minute when Civetta opened his account for the match and from that point onwards Namibia were always playing catch-up rugby.
The African under-19 champions did come within three points of the host nation at the start of the second period but Los Teritos finished strongly to score five tries and win comfortably.
Civetta’s first was followed by a try for Guillermo Pujadas which full-back Alejo Piazza turned into seven points with the conversion.
Trailing 12-0 Namibia needed a response and they found it on 29 minutes when Cliven Loubser converted his own try. However, Uruguay had the final say of the first half when Juan Martin Cattivelli kicked the first drop goal of the tournament on 33 minutes to make the half-time score 15-8.
Adriaan Ludick’s try four minutes after the restart gave Namibia real hope of bettering last year’s fourth-place finish in Zimbabwe, but Civetta’s second and Piazza’s conversion put some daylight between the teams.
Martin Fitipaldo scored Uruguay’s fourth try before Los Teritos survived the 10 minutes that James McCubbin was off the field for a yellow card without conceding any points,
Namibia also lost a man to the sin-bin in the dying throes of the match and, this time, the extra man told as Matias Aboy went over in stoppage time. Piazza kicked his third conversion from five attempts, the six points taking him to the top of the tournament’s points scoring charts.
Chile tackled their hearts out and hung in for a 15-13 victory to claim fifth place at the expense of a Fijian side that struggled to adapt to the wet conditions at the Estadio Charrúa.
Canada saved their best performance until last as they shut-out Hong Kong to win 38-0 and claim seventh place. -worldrugby.org
