They have had to cope with with a cash crisis and a player walkout, but the Namibian rugby team are determined to win two games at the World Cup in Australia in October.
The team, whose players include a lion tamer and a cricketer who played in the World Cup in March, have been drilled by their New Zealand coach David Waterston to make sure they notch up a couple of wins in Australia.
”Our aim is to achieve two wins at the World Cup,” said 58-year-old Waterston, who assisted the late Kitch Christie in South Africa’s World Cup triumph in 1995 and coached Tonga at the 1999 World Cup.
”They [Namibia] had tough training sessions this week. We will leave our mark at the World Cup. On Wednesday night, they won 23-7 in a game against the Namibian Barbarians,” he said this week.
Namibia, who qualified ahead of Tunisia, Madagascar and Zimbabwe, open their World Cup campaign on October 14 against Argentina in Gosford, north of Sydney.
”Argentina will open their tournament against Australia, and will then field their B side against us. It will be their mistake. And we should win against Romania”, says Waterston, who likes to compare his players to Maoris — ”strong guys with big hearts”.
It will be Namibia’s second World Cup appearance. They lost all three matches at the 1999 tournament.
Waterston says the competition is important for young Namibian players, like star winger Melrick Africa (25), because it could get them noticed.
”The international exposure of the team could win them contracts overseas,” he says.
The Namibian team, known as the Welwitchias — the national plant that grows in the Namib desert — are ranked 25th in the world.
The team has mostly amateur players, but some unusual characters.
Hard-tackling flanker Schalk van der Merwe, dubbed ”The Lion Man”, grew up on a family farm that rehabilitates injured or abandoned lions, cheetahs and other carnivores in Gobabis, about 200km east of Windhoek.
Fly-half Rudie Janse van Vuuren (31), a doctor, will be the first man to represent his country at rugby and cricket world cups, having played in the cricket tournament in South Africa in March.
But Namibia’s journey to the World Cup has been a bumpy one.
Late in September four of the few professional players withdrew from the World Cup squad to remain with Currie Cup South African teams who pay their wages.
A senior player, winger Rian van Wyk, earlier walked out, criticising Waterston’s absenteeism and style of management.
”He thinks nothing of telling a player that he is fat, lazy and useless,” Van Wyk told the Namibian newspaper Die Republikein.
Rugby, far behind soccer in terms of popularity, is small in Namibia with just more than 13 000 players, so raising enough cash to finance the trip to Australia has been a problem. Waterston, whose main job is insurance in Johannesburg, says he hasn’t been paid in 16 months.
The team were recently bailed out by a 600 000 Namibian dollar (R492 000) windfall raised by the government and private sector, guaranteeing they will be able to go to the World Cup and hopefully get their kit and blazers in time.
The Namibia Rugby Union says it needs 1,3-million Namibian dollars (R1,06-million) to cover costs for the trip Down Under and is negotiating a 500 000 Namibian dollar (R410 000) bank loan. — Sapa-AFP