Jacques Burger announced his retirement from international rugby after Namibia exited the 2015 Rugby World Cup, finishing in last place in Group C.
Known to be a fierce competitor, he would have been very disappointed at having to miss out on Namibia’s final game of the tournament against Argentina in Leicester due to a concussion suffered in their penultimate game against Georgia. Watching from the sidelines is definitely not in Burger’s DNA.
The Namibians, like most nations who had to pre-qualify for the tournament, faced an immense challenge to assemble a competitive side. In their case, they assembled their team from players plying their trade in South Africa’s Currie Cup or Super Rugby Franchises, the French and English professional leagues and their home based players who are mostly amateur players having to hold down full time jobs.
The Rugby World Cup draw was certainly not kind to the Namibians as they kicked their tournament off against the defending champions, New Zealand. Whilst most rugby lovers predicted a triple digit score for the All Blacks, the Namibians showed a great deal of determination to hold them to an eventual scoreline of 58 to 14. Next up was a game against Tonga which they would have thought they had a chance to win, but eventually succumbed 35 to 21.
The game which they had probably targetted as their best opportunity to pull off their first-ever Rugby World Cup win was against Georgia. The final score of 17 points to 16 in Georgia’s favour does indicate a very tough game, but not that the Georgians spilled a number chances, nor that Namibia shot themselves in the foot with their poor discipline by having three players in the sin bin during the game. Thirty minutes out of eighty playing with one player less is always going to be a significant challenge.
Namibia’s final game was against the ever-improving Argentina and they were well beaten by 64 points to 19. They started this game without their two high quality loose forwards, Burger with his concussion and Renaldo Bothma due to suspension, but nothing could stop them playing the game with enjoyment and with their celebration of every point they scored, it was hard not to smile with them. Even their last play of the tournament brought a smile to the rugby world. Retiring prop Johnny Redelinghuys, who came on as a reserve to earn his 50th Test cap, was asked to take the final conversion kick.
In the final analysis, they did not achieve that first Rugby World Cup win which they had targeted, but they did earn their first log point by way of their losing bonus point against Georgia. As with all other tier two sides, their future improvement will probably be decided by the tier one nations. The likes of Namibia need to be playing against the likes of a South Africa or an Argentina, but will the tier one teams agree to doing this, knowing that these games do not generally generate the cash they would normally expect?
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