TJIUEE Uanivi will captain Namibia for the first time when they start their 2016 Africa Cup campaign against Uganda in Kampala on Saturday.
The towering lock has been in fine form for the Sharks in their Currie Cup qualifying campaign as well as for Namibia on their recent tour to Romania where they finished third in the Nations Cup and takes over the captaincy from eighthman Renaldo Bothma, who is unavailable for the match.
Bothma has been released to play for his franchise the Blue Bulls, along with Thorsten van Jaarsveld and Aranos Coetzee of the Cheetahs, but they will be available for Namibia’s final Africa Cup match against Zimbabwe in Windhoek on 6 August. Namibia also host Kenya in the Africa Cup in Windhoek on 16 July.
Uanivi will captain an experienced side which will start out as the favourites to win their first of three matches in this year’s Africa Cup campaign.
Of the starting 15 for Saturday’s match, 13 players were in last year’s World Cup squad, while three more World Cup players will start on the bench.
The only two new players in the starting 15 are hooker Gerhard Lotter and wing Gino Wilson who both made their international debuts at the Nations Cup in Romania.
Some of the other newcomers among the substitutes include props Collen Smith and Hauta Veii and locks Ruan Ludick and Muniovita Kasiringua.
For the rest, the squad has a familiar look about it and includes flanker Tinus du Plessis and scrum half Eugene Jantjies, who both joined retired prop Johnnie Redelinghuys as the only players to have won 50 caps for Namibia, on their Romanian tour.
The rest of the team is a mixture of youth and experience as the selectors go about building the next squad that can hopefully qualify for the 2019 World Cup.
Amongst the forwards, Uanivi will be partnered by the promising lock Janco Venter – still only 21 years old, but already with 13 caps to his name, while the 23 year old Leneve Damens joins the experienced Tinus du Plessis and Rohan Kitshoff amongst the loose forwards.
Amongst the backs, Chrysander Botha returns to the team for the first time since the World Cup, after his contract with Exeter Chiefs came to an end.
Botha will start Saturday’s match at right wing, while the explosive Johan Tromp will start at full back.
Namibia will field an experienced halfback combination of Jantjies and
the vice captain Theuns Kotze, who has already won 31 caps for his country.
Kotze is a proven match winner for Namibia and had a brilliant Nations Cup, where he missed just one kick throughout the whole tournament.
Against Romania he succeeded with a conversion, against Spain he scored a try, a penalty and four conversions, and against Emerging Italy he succeeded with four out of five conversions.
The Ugandan Cranes, meanwhile, recently concluded a two-week training camp in Bloemfontein, South Africa where they played two trial matches, beating Bloemfontein Police 24-22, but losing 38-13 to the Cheetahs u23 side.
Besides that they also suffered a comprehensive 48-10 defeat to Kenya in Kampala at the beginning of June, but according to a report in the Ugandan paper New Vision, they are confident of upsetting Namibia on their home turf.
“We won’t be intimidated by the Namibian team – we have had enough training to stop them,” their vice captain Michael Wokorach was quoted as saying, while their South African coach John Duncan was also optimistic that they could beat Namibia.
“We are sharpening our attack, stealing balls in the rucks, and we are working on how to stop mauls which our opponents are likely to use,” he said.
The Namibian squad which leaves for Kampala tomorrow is as follows:
Casper Viviers, Gerhard Lotter, AJ de Klerk, Janco Venter, Tjiuee Uanivi (captain), Rohan Kitshoff, Tinus du Plessis, Leneve Damens, Eugene Jantjies, Theuns Kotze (vice captain), Gino Wilson, Johan Deysel, JC Greyling, Chrysander Botha and Johan Tromp.
The substitutes are Louis van der Westhuizen, Collen Smith, Quinton Esterhuizen, Ruan Ludick, Muniovita Kasiringua, Arthur Bouwer, Darryl de la Harpe and Heinrich Smit.
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