Namibia Rugby Newsletter - Issue 1

NRU News

9 October 2013

The local club league kicked off in May this year and concluded on 5 October where

Western Suburbs beat Rehoboth in the finals to walk away with the Premier League

Cup for the second time in two years. Wanderers beat Reho Falcon in the final of the

Premier League Plate competition. The first league winner over Rosh Pinah was United

3, and the First League Shield winner was Walvisbay 2 after beating Rehoboth 2

narrowly. In the women’s league it was Phoenix who won Reho Pandas for the second

consecutive year.

The finals were played in good spirit with no major incidents on or off the field. The

NRU want to thank all the players and club managements for the success of the day.

The spectators enjoyed themselves and were hosted to a feast of tries and spectacular

rugby during the day. The NRU also thank and congratulate all clubs who did not stand

back when no sponsor was available for the club league, but worked hard to make it a

success.

Club League reach climax at finals

Club League concluded

In this issue

1

Get Into Rugby Successful 2

World Cup Qualifiers 2014 5

Navachab Gold Mine Regional Cup 6

Tri-‐Nations Rugby Series 6

2 NRU News – 09 October 2013

“…close to 5,000 players between grade 1 and 4 and

more than 130 coaches and referees

who are being introduced.

Get Into Rugby a huge success in Namibia

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The IRB accredited Get Into Rugby (GIR)

program finally reached the

implementation phase in the beginning

of September, and the result is

overwhelming.

Since the beginning of the year the NRU

have been working on implementing the

GIR program. The first phase was to do

all the planning which included details

plans of where the program will be

introduced, how many children will be

exposed to the program, how many

coaches and referees will be trained, etc.

Once approval was obtained from the

IRB, the second phase was to draw up a

budget and secure funding for the

program. FNB Foundation came on

board as sponsor and are sponsoring the

NRU N$300,000 per year for the next

three years for the GIR program.

Shoprite came on board as food sponsor

for all the tournaments we will have in

all the regions. Auas Motors supplied a

vehicle that can be used for all the miles

to be driven to implement the program.

The IRB supplied the NRU with 16 GIR

kits which contained balls, bips, tags and

cones.

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Phase 3 was to train a coordinator and

Henry Kemp as Development Manager

of the NRU was send to Cape Town to

get training from the IRB together with

coordinators from all over Africa.

Phase 4 was to order all branding

material and t-‐shorts, as well as visiting

all the schools identified to introduce

the GIR program to them. Once the

schools has been introduced and

committed to the program, we were

ready for phase 5, the implementation

phase, which started in the first week of

September. Henry Kemp visited all the

schools from the following towns to

teach teachers and volunteers how to

implement the GIR program: Katima

Mulilo, Rundu, Oshakati, Walvisbay,

Windhoek and Keetmanshoop. Our

planning was to introduce about 2160

players and 42 coaches and referees to

the program in 2013. After consultations

with the schools, we realized that they

are so enthusiastic that our numbers will

be doubled. At the moment we are

looking at close to 5,000 players

between grades 1 and 4 and more than

130 coaches and referees who are being

introduced.


The objective of the GIR program is to increase participation from our current figure of just over 6,500 rugby players to 15,000 by the end of 2015

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The children started to train during the last 3 weeks and the first GIR tournaments

are kicking off tomorrow, Thursday , and Friday in Katima Mulilio where about 2,000

players will participate. The schools are so enthusiastic about the program, and they

have taken full ownership of it. They have printed programs, organsied a PA system,

arranged the governor to open the program, have people to exhibition products,

etc. Next weekend the next tournament will be held in Rundu, from where similar

tournaments will be held in all other towns as well, with the final tournament of the

year being held in Windhoek on 16 November with the Tri-‐Nations Rugby Series.

The objective of the GIR program is to increase participation from our current figure

of just over 6,500 rugby players to 15,000 by the end of 2015. The program will be

introduced to more schools in 2014. In addition to the grade 1 to 4 GIR program, we

will also introduce GIR for Girls in 2014 which will focus on girls from 12-‐16 years of

age. This initiative will rapidly increase the number of girls playing rugby in Namibia,

which is so important if we want to be able to field competitive teams to qualify for

the Commonwealth Games and Olympics.

The NRU want to thank Henry Kemp for all the hard work he have put in to

implement the program successfully

We also want to thank the sponsors for their very valuable contribution to make this

program a success for the children of Namibia.


Get Into Rugby storyboard in pictures

Notice the smiles on the children’s

faces… Not only playing together, but time to

also eat together…

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CAR 1A, 2014 The Confederation of African Rugby has announced the dates and venue for the 2014 Division 1A championships, which will serve as the final round of African qualification for the 2015 Rugby World Cup slated for England. Antananarivo, Madagascar, who played host to this year's event will again host the championships which will be played on a round robin format. While the actual run of play is yet to be determined, the opening fixtures will take place on Saturday 28th June 2014, with the next set of matches taking place on Wednesday 2nd July 2014 paving way for the final round of

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matches on Sunday 5th July 2014. Kenya is the African champions for 2013, having defeated Zimbabwe 29-‐17 in the final played in July 2013. Namibia was promoted to Division 1A after beating both Senegal and Tunisia in Dakar, Senegal in June.

Kenya, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Namibia will thus compete against each other in 2014 to determine the African Qualifier at the next RWC.

World Cup Qualifiers 2014

The regional games will serve as trials for

the National team that have to be selected

to play in the Tri-‐Nations.

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TThe second round of the Navachab

Gold Mine Regional Cup will kick off on

19 October.

Six Regional Teams namely Khomas

Knights, Hardap Raiders, Western Chiefs

(all Pool A), //Kharas Mustangs,

Northern Reds and Samurai’s (all Pool B)

will participate in the competition. The

winner of each pool will receive

N$20,000 prize money, the runner-‐up

will receive N$15,000 and the team in

third place will receive N$10,000 each.

Travelling and accommodation costs as

well as the prize money will be

contributed by the generous

sponsorship of Navachab Gold Mine. The

teams will play each other on 19

October, 2 November and 9 November.

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On 16 November, just before the main

test, we will do the handover of medals

to the teams as well as the handover of

the Cup and the prize money.

The regional games will serve as trials

for the National team that have to be

selected to play in the Tri-‐Nations.

The NRU want to once again thank

Navachab Gold Mine and Streethouse

for their sponsorships to enable us to

make the regional competition a reality.

Navachab Gold Mine Regional Cup

The Tri-‐Nations will thus be a tournament full of rugby to end off the year on a high note.

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The NRU will host the second Windhoek Draught Tri-‐Nations Rugby Series from 8 – 16 November at the Hage Geingob Rugby Stadium. Both Zimbabwe and Kenya confirmed their participation in this all Africa Rugby series. Namibia Breweries through their brand Windhoek Draught will once again be the title sponsor.

Zimbabwe will arrive in Windhoek on Wednesday, 6 November and will open the Tri-‐Nations with a test against the host, Namibia on Friday night, 8 November. The last time these two sides played against each other, Zimbabwe was defeated by Namibia 37-‐34 in last year’s Tri-‐Nations.

Kenya will arrive in Windhoek on Sunday, 10 November and will have their first match against Zimbabwe on Tuesday, 12 November. The last time these two sides met was in July this year where Kenya beat Zimbabwe in the

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finals of CAR 1A.

The final test of the series will be played on Saturday, 16 November between Namibia and Kenya. Both these sides have improved their standard of rugby during the last year and would want to win this game, as the next time these two sides will meet, it will be in the CAR 1A competition in 2014 to determine the African qualifier for the RWC 2015.

In addition to the tests being played, our Namibia U/20 team will play a curtain raiser against a Namibia Invitational XV for all 3 tests. These matches will assist to prepare the U/20 team who are preparing for the JWRT in Hong Kong from 3 April 2014.

We will have a 7’s tournament on 16 November where clubs can enter teams to play.

The final GIR tournament will also be played on 16 November at the stadium.

Windhoek Draught Tri-‐Nations Rugby Series

Documents

Namibia Rugby Newsletter - Issue 1