Oh man, you’ve got to worry about the state of the game in so-called “developing” rugby nations when a country like Namibia is forced to withdraw from a competition as prestigious as the Vodacom Cup… That’s exactly what has happened, though, with our northerly neighbours announcing that their team of Welwitschias can no longer participate due to “financial constraints”.
Copy writers, myself included, will breathe a sigh of relief. Naming a rugby team after a flower is dodgy at the best of times (albeit surprisingly common), but choosing one as hard to spell and pronounces as “Welwitschia” is just plain sadistic. The implications of the 11th-hour pull-out are a little more serious than the powers that be would have you believe. The glib statement that “teams will now have a bye instead of facing the Welwitschias” opens up a whole can of worms, due to the way the competition draw works.
You see, only half of the sides in the competition were down to play them anyway, meaning that the North section now has one fewer team than the South does; in short, if you play in the North section, like the Bulls, Lions, Griquas and a few other sides do, your Vodacom Cup just got a bit easier… then again, given that the Namibians hardly put up much resistance anyway, it could be argued that this point is somewhat moot.
The timing is quite ironic, though – just a few weeks back, it was announced that Limpopo would field a a team in the Vodacom Cup in 2013. What a pity that can’t be accelerated; after all, if Limpopo aren’t going to be included in the North section, I wonder who would be?
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Simpler draw 😆 😆
Well it is afterall Bulls territory and we know that those tools ain’t the sharpest.
as one of them said on N24 this morning something along the lines of WP should now be worried because they could now finish last. 🙂
Errrrrrr Duuuuuuuuhhhhh I’ll say it so he can understand. “The WP team are playings in vhe ovver seksie of de draw” 😳
Here’s your sign!!
Not good for Namibian Rugby, they need to constantly play in competitions to give their players the exposure they need
In 1991 when Ireland toured Namibia, Namibia beat them because their players played in the Currie Cup at the highest level
@KSA Shark © (Comment 2) :
😯 😆