The Namibia Rugby Union (NRU) received N$100 000 as financial support from the Namibia National Olympic Committee (NNOC) towards their hosting of the Dune Sevens Rugby Tournament which will be held at Jan Wilken Stadium in Walvis Bay from 18 to 20 November.
The teams that will participate will include South Africa, Kenya, Botswana, Boland A, Boland B, Western Cape A, Western Cape B, Namibia A, Namibia B and Namibian regional reams.
Abner Xoagub, the secretary general of the NNOC said since rugby sevens had been accepted as an Olympic sport they were looking at ways of helping them qualify for the next edition of the Games.
“We had long discussions with rugby on how to assist them and we wanted an ongoing program on how they plan to qualify for the 2012 Olympics and they said they need to host tournaments,” Xoagub said.
As a result the NNOC decided to give them the money to help them host the tournament that will see some of Africa’s top talent playing in Namibia.
The CEO of the NRU, Sakkie Mouton said that they wanted the sevens team to have regular competition in order for them to be able to compete against the best and qualify for the Olympics.
“We have to start planning for the Olympics and therefore have to get our players to specialize as either sevens players or the 15 member team rugby players,” Mouton said.
“We want the players to play more competitive rugby in Africa and we wanted to host some of these tournaments which they will be competing in,” he added.
The coach of the Namibian teams, Ronaldo Pedro was very confident of his team’s chances at the tournament.
“I think that we will end up in the first two places and if we are second it will be to the South African Springboks. That is the only team we are nervous about, but we are also happy that they are bringing their first team and therefore we will have good practice for the upcoming tournament in George which we will also be a part of,” Pedro said.
“This time we are a better team than last year’s team that won the plate final in the Trustco sevens tournament,” he added.
“Our only concern for the tournament is that we will be missing Attie du Plessis who was called up for the national team that will be in Europe at that time, we have however gotten a good replacement for him,” Pedro continued.
The tournament will be played on a round robin format with the teams divided into four groups.
Kenya is expected to arrive in the country on Wednesday and the rest of the teams that will participate will arrive in Namibia on Thursday.
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