Namibian Sevens team wins silver at Africa Cup

A young Namibian Sevens Rugby team surprised friend and foe alike by finishing second at the Africa Rugby Cup Sevens final in Nairobi, Kenya over the weekend.

Namibia won their Pool matches against Tunisia and Botswana on Friday, 23 September to reach the semifinals against Madagascar on Saturday morning.

Here a late try by Nandivatu Karuuombe gave Namibia a 10-7 victory to put them through to the final against Uganda who had stunned Kenya 17-12 in the other semifinal.

In the final though, Uganda were too strong, winning the match 38-19 to win the cup.

Uganda’s victory saw them qualifying for the Dubai Sevens and the Cape Town Sevens tournaments which both take place in December, while Namibia, as the runners-up, received automatic entry to the popular Hong Kong Sevens tournament in April next year.

The manager and assistant coach of the Namibian team Robbie Dickson said he was proud of his team which had reached its first ever final under trying circumstances.

“We held our trials on 11 September and only had two weeks to prepare the boys who were not close to full fitness, but we still managed to reach the final,” he said.

A further constraint was the fact that the Sevens selectors could not call up any of Namibia’s 60 top players who were part of the Namibia Rugby Union’s High Performance group, with the result that a new and young team had to be fielded in Kenya.

Of the group, only four players had represented the Welwitschias before, namely wingers Nandivatu Karuuombe and Tuna Amutenya, and centres Mbimbo Mbai and Handre Bezuidenhout.

Despite these limitations the tour was very successful and they became the first Namibian team to reach the Cup Final of the Africa Sevens tournament.

In their opening Pool match on Friday, they beat Tunisia 17-5 with Shareave Titus, Nandivatu Karuuombe and Alistair Jacobs scoring their three tries.

They followed this up with another convincing 19-5 win against Botswana, with Ngumee Nguaiko scoring two tries and Helarius Kisting one.

In Saturday morning’s semifinal, Madagascar took an early 7-0 lead but Namibia struck back through a try by Sunday Haitembu to reduce the gap to 7-5. With seconds remaining, Madagascar seemed set for victory but Namibia launched a final attack and Karuuombe went over for the winning try after the full time hooter had already sounded.

This put Namibia through to their first Africa Cup final where they took on Uganda, who had shocked Kenya with a 17-12 victory in the other semifinal.

In the final, however, Namibia were on the back foot from the start as Uganda took the lead from the start. By halftime they were well ahead at 26-12 and although Namibia reduced the gap to 26-19 early in the second half, Uganda scored two more tries to win the match 38-19.

With most of the players still under 23, Dickson said the team can still go far.

“We have a very young team which can still develop a lot. We have now qualified for the 2017 Hong Kong Sevens, but Ill talk to the Cape Town Sevens organisers and see if we can also qualify for that tournament,” he said.

Besides that, the Namibian team as well as an Academy team will start preparing for the Safland Namibian Sevens tournament which will be hosted in Swakopmund on 12 and 13 November.

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