WINDHOEK: National senior rugby team, the Welwitschias’ head coach Allister Coetzee says their first game against Burkina Faso at the ongoing Rugby Africa Champions was ‘off-colour’.

The 2024 Rugby Africa Cup kicked off on Saturday, 20 July in Kampala, Uganda and will run until Sunday, 28 July 2024. The tournament features the top eight unions across Africa and is being held at the refurbished Mandela National Stadium and Wankulukuku Stadium.

Despite starting their defence of the continental championship with a 38-5 victory against Burkina Faso, the head coach said on Sunday that their performance in the opening game did not start as they had hoped.

‘We were off-colour, we made a lot of unforced errors in our set pieces especially the line-out, where we were supposed to apply pressure,’ he said.

Coetzee added that the team not having points on the scoreboard in the opening 30 minutes of the match worked against their strategy.

‘We were under pressure from Burkina Faso as we missed a couple of kicks and w
e conceded seven penalties which were a lot in the first half, and with all these mistakes Burkina Faso grew in confidence and came at us,’ Coetzee said.

The coach stated that despite all these small obstacles their goal remains the same and they are looking forward to their next match in the competition.

‘Our goal was to win the first match which we did and we now have a lot of work against Zimbabwe who won their first match against host nation Uganda also on Saturday,’ he said.

Coetzee said that they are looking forward to that clash which they know is not going to be easy.

‘We are going to do our homework and prepare accordingly against them (Zimbabwe). We hope our next game won’t be an early one which will help with logistics, we know Zimbabwe has good players, but we are ready for this tough match,’ he said.

The semi-finals of the 2024 Rugby Africa Cup will feature Namibia against Zimbabwe at Mutesa II Stadium Wankulukuku on Wednesday, 24 July 2024.

Source: The Namibia News Agency