Namibia focus on Georgia

THE Namibian rugby XV will now shift their focus to what will be their most crucial World Cup encounter against Georgia on Wednesday.

Namibia got an embarrassing 63-3 drubbing from Argentina on Saturday in Marseilles in a Group D contest. Despite a short-lived 3-0 lead in the opening minutes of the game on Saturday, Namibia never recovered after the break, as Argentina ran in seven tries to even give themselves a bonus point as the match turned into one-way traffic.Argentina led 25-3 at halftime.The loss was inevitable against the full-time professionals, but Namibia will now look to the Georgia match, to be decided in Lens, to redeem themselves from a poor but overall gutsy spell at the tournament.Before their departure for France, the Namibians vowed to win at least one match at the world event.Their prime target was Georgia, who are also considered as fellow strugglers in the ‘Group of Death’.Georgia, like Namibia, put up a great fight against Ireland only to go down 14-10, but were swept aside 33-3 by a rampant Argentinean side on September 11.Namibia will now be going into their fourth and last match of the tournament and judging from their record in the past three matches, Georgia will have the upper hand.Namibia first lost to Ireland by 32 points to 17, before they went down by a record margin of 87-10 against France.In total, Namibia has conceded 182 points and scored 29, while Georgia conceded 47 and scored 13.Georgia played their last match on September 15 and had no fixture the past weekend, meaning they had a total of 10 days to prepare for the match, while Namibia only has three days.But coach Hakkies Husselman says the focus of his team, picked from just 1 500 senior club players, will now turn directly to attempting to secure a win against the Georgians.”We will pick a different side for Georgia,” said Husselman.”It’s difficult to play three big games in a row and the last one four days later, but the guys are prepared for that,” he told AFP.Namibia is the lowest-ranked team at the World Cup (25th).It is their third successive tournament, an admirable achievement for a nation of just over two million people and less than 1 500 adult players.But only seven of the 30-man Namibian squad in France are professional.The rest work and then train for an hour every morning and two hours every night, and the difference in class between them and the Pumas was glaringly obvious.””We’ll go away and work hard.It’s important we get a good result against Georgia on Wednesday.”said captain Corné Powell.Despite a short-lived 3-0 lead in the opening minutes of the game on Saturday, Namibia never recovered after the break, as Argentina ran in seven tries to even give themselves a bonus point as the match turned into one-way traffic.Argentina led 25-3 at halftime.The loss was inevitable against the full-time professionals, but Namibia will now look to the Georgia match, to be decided in Lens, to redeem themselves from a poor but overall gutsy spell at the tournament.Before their departure for France, the Namibians vowed to win at least one match at the world event.Their prime target was Georgia, who are also considered as fellow strugglers in the ‘Group of Death’.Georgia, like Namibia, put up a great fight against Ireland only to go down 14-10, but were swept aside 33-3 by a rampant Argentinean side on September 11.Namibia will now be going into their fourth and last match of the tournament and judging from their record in the past three matches, Georgia will have the upper hand.Namibia first lost to Ireland by 32 points to 17, before they went down by a record margin of 87-10 against France.In total, Namibia has conceded 182 points and scored 29, while Georgia conceded 47 and scored 13.Georgia played their last match on September 15 and had no fixture the past weekend, meaning they had a total of 10 days to prepare for the match, while Namibia only has three days.But coach Hakkies Husselman says the focus of his team, picked from just 1 500 senior club players, will now turn directly to attempting to secure a win against the Georgians.”We will pick a different side for Georgia,” said Husselman.”It’s difficult to play three big games in a row and the last one four days later, but the guys are prepared for that,” he told AFP.Namibia is the lowest-ranked team at the World Cup (25th).It is their third successive tournament, an admirable achievement for a nation of just over two million people and less than 1 500 adult players.But only seven of the 30-man Namibian squad in France are professional.The rest work and then train for an hour every morning and two hours every night, and the difference in class between them and the Pumas was glaringly obvious.””We’ll go away and work hard.It’s important we get a good result against Georgia on Wednesday.”said captain Corné Powell.