Namibia eyes Vodacom Cup

NAMIBIA will almost certainly compete in next year’s Vodacom Cup rugby competition, following successful negotiations between the Namibia Rugby Union and their South African counterparts.

Namibian national coach John Williams said that Namibia’s request to compete in the Vodacom Cup had been positively received and now it was just a matter of finalising the agreement.’Our request has been approved…and we are also negotiating with our main sponsors MTC regarding the financial implications of participating in the competition,’ he said. Namibia last participated in the Vodacom Cup competition in 2002, and their return to the competition will provide a huge boost for Namibian rugby. The competition serves a feeder system for South Africa’s provincial franchises, where they can groom new players before they are exposed to South Africa’s top provincial competition, the Currie Cup. Namibian rugby is bound to benefit from the higher standard of competition as well as the increased matches that the competition will offer. Over the past few years, Namibia has had a dearth of competition, as it mostly only participated in the African Cup or World Cup qualifiers. In 2008, for instance, Namibia only played three matches throughout the whole year – two World Cup qualifying matches against Senegal and Zimbabwe and a friendly match against Vodacom Western Province.Participation in the Vodacom Cup will however guarantee Namibia much more competition. A total of 14 teams participated in the 2009 competition in two sections, with each team playing six matches. The top four teams in each group qualified for the knockout stages, before Griquas went on to beat the Blue Bulls 28-19 in the final. Williams meanwhile announced a squad of 61 players, which will start preparing for the 2010 Vodacom Cup competition. Williams said that Namibia was way behind South Africa’s leading provinces in terms of conditioning of its players and that they needed sufficient time to prepare them for next year’s competition. ‘We have named a big squad and will narrow it down later. It might still seem early, but we want to be pro-active and make sure that we are ready next year. This group will go to the gym Mondays to Fridays, while we will train on Mondays and Wednesday,’ he said.www.namibiasport.com.na