The Namibian senior rugby team missed their chance for a first victory at the Rugby World Cup due to three yellow cards in the second half of their final match against Uruguay in France.
The Welwitschias lost the match 26-36 on Wednesday evening, despite a great 14-0 start that had them dreaming of ending a record 25-match losing run at the Rugby World Cup.
Namibia took an early lead with barely a minute on the clock, taking advantage of an error pass by Uruguay which Gerswin Mouton intercepted to open the scoring for his team. Tiaan Swanepoel made no mistake from the spot, scoring the easiest of conversions.
In the 11th minute, Namibia extended their lead by going through multiple phases before Richard Hardwick passed the ball to wing JC Greyling, who ran down the left flank to score an easy try in the corner. Swanepoel was successful once again with the conversion kick.
At half-time, Swanepoel extended their lead to 20-12 with two penalty goals scored.
Despite all this dominance in the first half, a yellow card for prop Des Sethie in the second half, which was later upgraded to a red card with 17 minutes left in the game, saw the Welwitschias reduced in manpower in the second half and allowed their opponents to crawl in.
Uruguay’s fullback Baltazar Amaya took advantage of the Namibian team’s ill-discipline and ran in two tries as Uruguay overturned a halftime deficit to defeat Namibia 36-26. Johan Coetzee and captain Tjiuee Uanivi were sent to the sin bin, and Sethie was red-carded.
Namibia lost all four of their group matches at the World Cup. The three against Italy, New Zealand and France were heavy defeats. They finished bottom of the group with zero points while Uruguay won its fourth-ever Rugby World Cup match.
Source: The Namibia Press Agency