NAMIBIA staged a great second half comeback to beat Emerging Italy 38-22 at the Nations Cup in Montevideo on Wednesday.
Namibia went into halftime trailing 22-7, but launched a great comeback to run in a total of six tries for a convincing victory.
Left wing Lesley Klim scored two tries, and eighthman Renaldo Bothma, centre JC Greyling and right wing Gino Wilson one each, while fly half Theuns Kotze scored a try and four conversions for a personal tally of 13 points.
For Italy, left wing Giacomo De Santis, scrum half Enrico Lucchin and eighthman Mirko Amenta scored tries while fly half Maicol Azzolini added one conversion and one penalty, and fullback Filippo Buscema one conversion.
It was Namibia’s first win at the tournament after they lost 15-13 to Spain in their opening match on Saturday.
Italy dominated the opening exchanges and took the lead when De Santis went over for an unconverted try in the left hand corner after nine minutes.
Five minutes later they went 12-0 ahead when Lucchin darted over from a maul, with Azzolini adding the first conversion.
Azzolini added a penalty to put Italy 15-0 ahead, but Namibia finally opened their account when Klim ran onto Kotze’s pass and turned on the speed to dive over for a converted try.
Italy, however, struck back just before halftime when Namibia conceded a scrum close to their try line and Amenta burst over for a converted try.
Namibia came out attacking in the second half and gradually reduced the deficit.
Captain Bothma barged over from a maul for a try on 51 minutes, and barely four minutes later Greyling completed a great move, which saw Kotze kicking ahead, Darryl de la Harpe catching the ball and offloading to Greyling. With Kotze’s conversion Namibia were right back in the match, trailing 22-19.
More was to come and once again Kotze was in the thick of things, selling a dummy to score a try which he converted himself as Namibia took the lead for the first time at 26-22.
Namibia finished stronger and another great try by Klim, plucking a kick ahead by Kotze out of the air and one by Gino Wilson from a fine pass by Cliven Loubser saw Namibia completing a fine victory.
Namibia’s final match is against Russia on Sunday.
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