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The Blues now know all the opponents they will face in the first phase of the 2023 World Cup. By winning the African Rugby Cup final against Kenya (36-0) on Sunday, Namibia won the African title and won his qualification for the competition which will be organized on French soil. She will play in Pool A with France, New Zealand, Uruguay and Italy, which will be her first rival.
Big favorite of the African qualifying tournament, Namibia logically qualified for the Rugby World Cup 2023, where it will find New Zealand and France in particular in the pools, beating Kenya 36-0 in the final, Sunday July 10 in Aix-en-Provence.
Namibia has already participated in the last six editions of the World Cup (1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019) and this new qualification confirms its status as the second African nation behind its neighbor South Africa, world champion In title.
At the 2023 World Cup (September 8 – October 21), the Namibian “Welwitschias”, ranked 24th in the world and trained since last year by South African Allister Coetzee, will be placed in pool A. They will face the New Zealand, triple world champion, France, host country, Italy and Uruguay.
“It’s a big honour, we’re very happy to go to the World Cup. We’ve worked hard to earn this right. We made a few mistakes at the start, but we stuck to our game plan and it went well. worked,” defender Divan Rossouw said after the game against Kenya.
“We knew that Kenya was always hard to play. It was a good confrontation and we gave everything. What an honor to go to the World Cup!”, Rejoiced the center and captain Johan Deysel, who evolves in the French professional championship under the colors of Colomiers in Pro D2.
Last chance to qualify for Kenya
After having clearly dominated Burkina Faso (71-5) in the quarter-finals then Zimbabwe with a little more difficulty in the semi-finals (34-19), Namibia very logically dominated Kenya on Sunday in Aix-en-Provence.
Infinitely more complete, the men of Allister Coetzee, former coach of the Springboks, scored four tries, the first three by third row Wian Conradie and the last by Johan Deysel. They added four penalties. Without a solution, Kenya has not even managed to save honour.
The Kenyan “Simbas”, however, have one last chance to qualify for the World Cup, via a repechage tournament in November bringing together three other teams: Portugal, as well as the unfortunate finalists of the “Americas 2” play-off (Chile or United States). States) and the Asia/Pacific dam (Tonga or Hong Kong).
Before the Rugby African Cup final between Namibia and Kenya, Algeria had brilliantly concluded their beautiful qualifying tournament by beating Zimbabwe 20-12 in the match to secure third place. In the semi-finals, Algeria only lost by three points against Kenya (33-36).
The classification matches played on July 10 in Aix-en-Provence :
Senegal – Burkina Faso: 44-20
Uganda – Ivory Coast: 18 – 17
Algeria – Zimbabwe: 20 – 12
Namibia – Kenya : 36 –
The final classification :
1. Namibia
2. Kenya
3. Algeria
4. Zimbabwe
5. Uganda
6. Ivory Coast
7. Senegal
8. Burkina Faso