• Help Support The Rugby Forum :

RWC 2015 Qualifiying

Well that was not OTT at all, Ewie..

For Africa, I hate to say it, but Namibia is a bit of a dead end. The country is just too small (population and economy) and distances too great for a viable domestic league. Namibia is as semi-competitive as they are simply because it's players get decent competition in SA but those players get no time together as a team. I guess all tier 2 and lower countries have this problem.

All African countries have poor economies (relative to the rest of the world) but I hear rugby is very popular in Madagascar and popularity is key to success IMO. Zimbabwe had a pretty established rugby culture at schools level already and could have been a great rugby nation. Just look at the class of players that didn't play for them; Tendai Mtawarira, David Pocock, Brian Mujati and David Denton all test rugby players still active off the top of my head. Zanu PF really ****ed that country up. Kenya have been around the 7's scene for a while now and have claimed a fair few scalps but I have no idea how they are in XV's. I've always thought that if rugby ever took off in Nigeria they could get a scary looking team together with the athletes they have.
 
"O.T.T" ?? you'll have to excuse me, I guess I'm just not 'in' with the current trends. Like, omfg wtf k brb k ttyl...

So yes indeed African countries are poor (relatively to......well relatively to nothing, they just poor as shht !!!!!) and that post of yours does put in perspective just how hard it is to have a really competitive team. The athletes you'd think are the essential condition, but no...you need the coaches, you need money, you need those guys to play well as a team.......
I'm still a bit confused over how Namibia are that bad. They're still SA's neighbors, and by now should really have a higher level one would think..
 
"O.T.T" ?? you'll have to excuse me, I guess I'm just not 'in' with the current trends. Like, omfg wtf k brb k ttyl...

So yes indeed African countries are poor (relatively to......well relatively to nothing, they just poor as shht !!!!!) and that post of yours does put in perspective just how hard it is to have a really competitive team. The athletes you'd think are the essential condition, but no...you need the coaches, you need money, you need those guys to play well as a team.......
I'm still a bit confused over how Namibia are that bad. They're still SA's neighbors, and by now should really have a higher level one would think..

'OTT' would generally be considered to mean 'over the top' and this is the meaning that I intended to convey. C'mon, man. Try to keep up. I am 5 years your senior FFS and isolated in this ****hole of a continent, Africa!

As for Namibia not playing well (at all) there are many factors. They have a small population so the pool to draw from is only so large. The country is large so getting together to do, well anything, is a problem. One is economic in that they simply can't afford the sport to be professional so their top players play elsewhere with the most well known probably Jacques Burger playing for Saracens. It is essentially a desert. Of the 2million population only about 9% would be white/colored and more or less interested in rugby if any sport. The country is poor for the most part so people tend to think of getting food on the plate first and persuing a sport where there isn't a chance in hell of a pro league is not clever. The country has hunter-gatherers FFS!!! And it is a desert. A ****ing desert with hunter gatherers and herders spread ****-off miles apart from each other apart from 1 'city'. They are doing extremely well to be getting into any sort of organized team sport's world cup IMO precisely on the back of their boys attending SA schools or their schools playing against SA schools every now and then.
 
yeah okay, so the solutions aren't so difficult, considering what you're saying:
they just need the next generations to fk like crazy and seriously populate that vast land.
...

and err...that's all I got.
 
Fiji now running rampant against the Cook Islands.....48-6 with about twenty minutes to go. Fijian qualification a mere formality now. The Cook Islands will e eliminated and only the African and Repechage qualifiers are lft to be determined.
 
Fiji 108-6 Cook Islands (29-6 HT)
Fiji
Try: Metuisela Talebula (2', 73'), Nemia Kenatale (28'), Asaeli Tikoirotuma (30'), Nemani Nadolo (32', 43', 53'), Watisoni Votu (38'), Akapusi Qera (49'), Aadriu Delai (60', 77'), Leroy Atalifo (65'), Nikola Matawalu (68', 79'), Timoci Nagusa (71', 80+4'), Dominiko Waqaniburotu (75')
Con: Nemani Nadolo 3/6 (3'x, 29', 31', 33'x, 40'x, 54'), Jonetani Ralulu 7/10(44', 51'x, 61', 66', 70', 72', 74', 76', 79'x, 80'x), Apisai Naikatini 0/1 (80+5'x)
DG: Metuisela Talebula 1/1 (63')
S: Rupeni Nasiga for Apisalome Ratuniyarawa (41'), Nikola Matawalu for Nemia Kenatale (41'), Viliame Veikoso for Sunia Koto (45'), Jerry Yanuyanutawa for Campese Ma'afu (45'), Adriu Delai for Nemani Nadolo (54'), Leroy Atalifo for Manasa Saulo (57'), Timoci Nagusa for Asaeli Tikoirotuma (67')

Cook Islands
Pen: Samson Vaevae 2/2 (6', 22')
S: Andrew Putairi for Daniel Devereaux (51'), Reece Joyce for Samson Vaevae (58'), Chris Iosua for Stan Wright (58'?), Louis Makere for? (70'), Mark Ioane for ?? (??), Jacob Marsters for AJ Campbell *subs not announced, hard to see numbers, not sure on them
 
Cook Islands were game for about the first quarter and than the Fijian size and power shone through, the bench really turning the screw past the 50 minute mark as Cook Islands rung in some changes with a very poor bench. Looked like they didn't have much morale either past the hour mark.
 
Rugby has got to be the team sport wherein there are the most levels. Fiji can put A HUNDRED points plus past a team, and they themselves will lose by 100 to the All-Blacks. It's just crazy to fathom just how many possible levels there are. Proportionally, that would be like a football team winning like 11-0. I mean there are human beings in that team defending them, real flesh and bone, it's not like they're absolute scrubs.

Reminds me of a Rugby "adage" (if anything) from some French coach: "anybody can play football, but not anybody can play Rugby". As in you can be tiny, skinny, a bit pear-shaped or wtvr for football, as long as you have talent you can just build the stamina and you've got a big chance. But in Rugby, you need the body - and then all the shiit you need to be good at Rugby - but the body is a fundamental requirement.
 
Kenya 29-22 Namibia!!! (19-12 HT)
Zimbabwe 57-22 Madagascar (22-15 HT)
 
Wow that's a great result by Kenya, one that might take em to the World Cup next year!
 
I would be delighted to see Kenya at the RWC for the first time. If they could fix their scrum a bit they'd be in with a chance of taking Georgia's or Tonga's scalp. Hopefully, if they qualify, the SA clubs will take in some of the Kenyan forwards in order to teach them what they need to know and get their bodies in the best physical shape possible.
 
Anybody know if Daniel Adongo is playing for Kenya or will play in the future?

Zim and Namibia each have a few players in the SA rugby scene but he is the only Kenyan I knew of- last I heard he was trying out for NFL in the USA.
 
Adongo is playing in the NFL.
+1, thanks for the info.

Pitty, he was a handy lock and did surprisingly well at the breakdowns considering his tallness and quality tight 5 players are seemingly the type of players most tier 2/3 countries struggle to produce.
 
Too bad. Adongo would have been useful to Kenya as they are doing pretty poorly in the forwards.
 
Who is likely to be the playoff winner to go into group 1 at the World Cup then ?
 
I would lean towards Uruguay, but it's by no means certain, if Russia can sort themselves out in the next six months, and Asia and Africa #2 should be more competitive this time out.
 
Who is likely to be the playoff winner to go into group 1 at the World Cup then ?

I think that is a question for the ages. Like, I don't mean for elderly people, I mean the common semi-poetic expression: "something something for the ages", you know ?
 

Latest posts

Top