Southern Spears beat Namibia

A NAMIBIAN invitational side fought back from a halftime deficit of 31-3 to score five tries in the second half before going down 57-31 to the Southern Spears at the Hage Geingob Stadium on Saturday.

In the first half it looked like men against boys with Spears captain Ashley Johnson easily breaking through tackles to set up tries for his team mates as well as scoring two himself. The South African provincial team scored four tries in the first half with flyhalf Ismaeel Dollie converting all and adding a penalty.Namibia could only reply with one penalty in the first half.The Spears picked up where they left off at the start of the second half when Johnson attacked from his own 22-metre line and ran 40 metres before putting wing Gersham Ramazaan away for an easy try.Dollie converted.The restart saw Namibia’s first decent backline move with Roger Thompson and Pieter Rossouw prominent, and Namibia’s first try came completely out of the blue when wing Fanie Pienaar dived over after sustained pressure.Two minutes later, Namibia’s left wing John Drotske drew rapturous applause when he dived over in the corner after good work by flank Desmond Haihambo.Fullback Morne du Plessis landed a great conversion from the touchline.Unfortunately, the Namibians could not keep their concentration up and Spears centre Reinhard Gerber scored a try.But Namibia came back again when they won a maul close to the Spears line and a quick backline move saw centre Pieter Rossouw diving over in the corner.Du Plessis once again succeeded with another difficult conversion.Johnson went on a rampaging counter-attack and neatly slipped the ball to Vido Nako, the Spears substitute scrumhalf, who scored under the poles.With Dollie off the field, Gerber successfully converted the try.Namibian fullback Du Plessis sealed an inspiring performance with an intercept try, running from his own 22-metre line to score under the poles.He also added the conversion.The game ended with Daniel Philander scoring for the Spears and Gerber converting to make the final score 57-31.After the game, Spears’ coach, Pieter de Villiers said he was not surprised with Namibia’s fight back.He said that Namibia was a team that one should not make mistakes against.He was optimistic about Namibia’s chances in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers.De Villiers said he was satisfied with his team’s effort in the scrums.He was however not happy with his team’s lineout work and pointed it out as the department his team will work on before their second match against Namibia on March 31.Namibian coach Johan Venter was very positive.”I told my players at half time that we could score the same amount of points they scored against us.This team has hardly played together and we conceded 21 points because of miscommunication,” he said.Venter said he was happy with the turnout of supporters who came to watch the game.”When last did we have people on the Open Stand ? They enjoyed themselves today.Rugby belongs to these people.There is a good vibe in our team,” Venter said.- Namibia SportThe South African provincial team scored four tries in the first half with flyhalf Ismaeel Dollie converting all and adding a penalty.Namibia could only reply with one penalty in the first half.The Spears picked up where they left off at the start of the second half when Johnson attacked from his own 22-metre line and ran 40 metres before putting wing Gersham Ramazaan away for an easy try.Dollie converted.The restart saw Namibia’s first decent backline move with Roger Thompson and Pieter Rossouw prominent, and Namibia’s first try came completely out of the blue when wing Fanie Pienaar dived over after sustained pressure.Two minutes later, Namibia’s left wing John Drotske drew rapturous applause when he dived over in the corner after good work by flank Desmond Haihambo.Fullback Morne du Plessis landed a great conversion from the touchline.Unfortunately, the Namibians could not keep their concentration up and Spears centre Reinhard Gerber scored a try.But Namibia came back again when they won a maul close to the Spears line and a quick backline move saw centre Pieter Rossouw diving over in the corner.Du Plessis once again succeeded with another difficult conversion.Johnson went on a rampaging counter-attack and neatly slipped the ball to Vido Nako, the Spears substitute scrumhalf, who scored under the poles.With Dollie off the field, Gerber successfully converted the try.Namibian fullback Du Plessis sealed an inspiring performance with an intercept try, running from his own 22-metre line to score under the poles.He also added the conversion.The game ended with Daniel Philander scoring for the Spears and Gerber converting to make the final score 57-31.After the game, Spears’ coach, Pieter de Villiers said he was not surprised with Namibia’s fight back.He said that Namibia was a team that one should not make mistakes against.He was optimistic about Namibia’s chances in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers.De Villiers said he was satisfied with his team’s effort in the scrums.He was however not happy with his team’s lineout work and pointed it out as the department his team will work on before their second match against Namibia on March 31.Namibian coach Johan Venter was very positive.”I told my players at half time that we could score the same amount of points they scored against us.This team has hardly played together and we conceded 21 points because of miscommunication,” he said.Venter said he was happy with the turnout of supporters who came to watch the game.”When last did we have people on the Open Stand ? They enjoyed themselves today.Rugby belongs to these people.There is a good vibe in our team,” Venter said.- Namibia Sport