Namibia quit Currie Cup?

[rowan]

This will be a real shame. You'd think the SA teams could have managed to travel to Windhoek once a season, since they did so easily enough throughout the amateur era. The Currie Cup is undoubtedly the main reason the Welwitschias have opened the gap on the rest of the African nations, but at the same time the skills and experience they are bringing to the Gold Cup has spin-off benefits for their opponents.

SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux confirmed on Friday that they had been informed that Namibia's Welwitschias will withdraw from the Currie Cup First Division.

"It's unfortunate that the Namibian team had to withdraw from the Currie Cup First Division, but our decision was that they have to pay for teams to travel to Windhoek for their home games, which they agreed to do," Roux said via a press statement.

"We've since been informed that they can't do that anymore and that the Windhoek Draught Welwitschias will withdraw from the competition, which means that all remaining teams will now have a bye on the weekend they were scheduled to play the Namibians."

The Namibians were due to host the Griffons at the Hage Geingob Stadium in Windhoek on Saturday.

https://allafrica.com/stories/201808240511.html

[Lizard]

On one hand, it’s a shame to see SA unable to support even one of its neighbours’ development. On the other hand, it levels the playing field a bit and might mean that the Namibian Boer XV loses its stranglehold on the RWC Africa qualifying spot. They have been a boring, useless blight on the tournament for years. I would much rather see a Kenya or Zimbabwe qualify which could really help revitalise rugby in black Southern and Eastern Africa.

[rowan]

Not so long ago the African championships and World Cup qualifying tournaments had very much the appearance of a lottery. The top half dozen teams were all at about the same level. Namibia very nearly missed the 2015 World Cup, in fact, and had to rely on an unlikely win for Zimbabwe over frontrunners Kenya to make it. The North African pair of Morocco and Tunisia, with their mostly France-based squads, have both reached the World Cup qualifying repechage stages in the past. Morocco had also won 3 African championships, while Tunisia has been runner-up on 3 occasions.

But now we see that a distinct hierarchy is developing. Namibia has clearly become the No 2 team in Africa, barely breaking a sweat in qualifying for its 6th successive World Cup, beating its closest rival Kenya 53-28 in the decisive match. It has also won the last 5 African championships in a row, having won just 3 times in the previous decade. Almost certainly their increasing dominance owes in large part to the Welwitschias' involvement in South African provincial rugby.

Kenya has emerged over the past several years as the No 3 team on the continent, often posting huge scores in African competition, including a couple of centuries against Tunisia. They continue to dominate their local rivalry with Uganda and have clearly turned the tables on Zimbabwe since that shock defeat in 2014. The success of the national 7s team has undoubtedly raised the profile of rugby in general, which appears to be reflected by their vast player numbers (according to World Rugby stats).

But all this needs to be kept in perspective. Kenya may be trouncing its African rivals, Namibia notwithstanding, but it has also suffered recent home defeats to Hong Kong and Germany - two teams it has beaten comfortably in the past (along with the likes of Spain and Portugal). That indicates an alarming step backward on the international scene, and probably the Simbas will start as the underdogs in the upcoming World Cup qualifying repechage tournament against the same two teams plus Canada.

Zimbabwe has obviously gone backward as well, and though probably the continent's No 4 team, a return to the World Cup for the first time since 1991 does not appear likely in the foreseeable future. Even when they made the repechage stage of the qualifying tournament 4 years ago, they were easily beaten by Russia, who in turn were defeated by Uruguay in the final. The North African pair look highly unlikely to make the repechages again, and have fallen a long way off the pace since transferring from European competition to Africa at the turn of the century.

1995 World Cup qualifiers Ivory Coast are playing second division in African competition these days, as are Madagascar - a nation with huge enthusiasm for the sport with packed stadiums for national fixtures and 164 'clubs' listed in the capital city alone! But only rarely has that translated into success at international level, and they were well out of their depth in the final round of the African qualifiers for the 2015 World Cup, despite hosting the qualifying tournament.

Who does that leave? Uganda have certainly had their moments, winning an African title, upstaging Kenya on occasions in the Elgon Cup (though not for a while) and thumping Tunisia in their last two meetings. But they also face the same limitations as Kenya - lacking both funding and access to regular competition at a high level. Neither do their players seem to be attracting much attention from professional clubs; Michael Wokoroach's phenomenal performances in African competition this year slipping beneath the radar, for example.

So what can be done to help these nations improve and also help bring through new teams where substantial interest is being shown in the game? It seems to me the answer lies primarily in increased involvement with the traditional rugby powerhouse at the base of the continent. Namibia's success is clear evidence of this. The exception would be the North African sides, and possibly their Francophile counterparts in the West of the continent, who might be better off seeking increased involvement with France, where many of their top players are based.

While it is surely not going to be possible to include all these teams in the national club and provincial competitions of France and South Africa, if talented players such as Wokoroach could be identified at an early age, given access to world class training programs and ultimately signed by professional clubs, we might see African rugby emerge from the shadows in the future the same way football on the continent did a few decades ago.