The Welwitschias will compete in the South African Vodacom Cup competition for the first time in four years following successful negotiations between the Namibia Rugby Union and the South African Rugby Union.
NRU chief executive officer Sybrand de Beer on Tuesday confirmed the news, adding that the Welwitschias will play all eight their matches at home, at the Dr Hage Geingob Stadium in Windhoek.
“We negotiated with SARU and asked them to assist us in our World Cup year. Our players are still amateurs so they would not be able to take leave from work, what with the Nations Cup in Romania also coming up in June and the World Cup in September. So we asked them if we can play all our matches at home and they agreed,” he said.
The Welwitschias will compete against eight other teams in the Northern Section of the Vodacom Cup, with their opening match being against the Golden Lions on 7 March.
The other competing teams in the Northern Section are the Blue Bulls, Falcons, Griffons, Griquas, Leopards, Limpopo Blue Bulls and the Pumas.
The Southern Section will comprise of the Boland Cavaliers, Border Bulldogs, Eastern Province Kings, Free State, Sharks, a Kenyan Simba XV, SWD Eagles and Western Province.
The group stage of the competition will continue till 9 May after which the knockout stages begin.
The top four teams in each group will qualify for the quarterfinals scheduled for 16 May, to be followed by the semifinals on 23 May and the final on 30 May.
De Beer said the NRU had secured a sponsor for the Welwitschias’ participation in the Vodacom Cup, although this will only be announced at a later stage. Besides this, World Rugby will also assist Namibia financially to compete in the Vodacom Cup.
De Beer said the aim of Namibia’s participation would be to prepare for the Rugby World Cup as well as to create more depth in the national squad.
“The Vodacom Cup will provide more game-time for our players while it’s very important that we get more depth in the squad, and especially in certain positions where we are not strong. We will also aim to bring in and develop more youth players for the future, so as to build a World Cup legacy,” he said.
In the past, the Welwitschias have not fared well in the Vodacom Cup and De Beer said it would once again be a tough competition.
“We are amateurs playing against professional players, who have already started training, while our players will only start training next week. It will once again be tough, but I predict that we will produce a few good results,” he said.
After the Vodacom Cup, Namibia will compete in the Nations Cup in Romania against other second tier rugby nations like Romania, Georgia and Portugal.
The competing teams and fixtures have not been announced yet but the tournament will run from 9 to 22 June.
En route to Romania, Namibia will also play their first match in the 2015 Africa Rugby Cup against Tunisia in Tunis on 6 June. They will play two more home matches in the Rugby Africa Cup against Zimbabwe and Kenya, following the Nations Cup.
Namibia could possibly still play a few friendlies before their Rugby World Cup campaign starts against the world champions, the All Blacks at the Olympic Stadium in London on 24 September.
