Namibia are big favourites with Bothma back to lead
AS was the case for RWC2015 the CAR African Championship will double up as the RWC2019 qualifying tournament for Africa 1, with the winners progressing to Japan where they will face New Zealand, South Africa, Italy and the winner of the repechage.
Hopefully, in light of the Rugby Europe Cup tournament, that also doubled up as the World Cup qualifying tournament, all eligibilities have been triple checked and all the referring appointments are above board.
Namibia have never failed to qualify from this Pool and as ever start as favourites, a situation reinforced by the fact that they will playing three of their five games at the Hage Geingob Stadium.
The Namibians welcome back Renaldo Bothma, below, whose first season at Quins was bedevilled by a recurring arm injury and also boast two Cheetah front row players in Aranos Coetzee and Torsten van Jaarsveld, former Exeter Chiefs fullback Chrysander Botha and London Scottish lock Tjiuee Uanivi.
Botha is one of 15 currently attached to the Welwitschias, Namibia’s high performance domestic side that competes in South Africa’s provincial SuperSport Rugby Challenge.
Two-time World Cup veterans Rohan Kitshoff and Darryl de la Harpe are also on board, as is threetime World Cup scrum-half Eugene Jantjies, the most experienced man in the squad with 61 caps. Young Bulls wing Divan Rossouw is another to keep an eye on.
Namibia are the highest world ranked team in the tournament at 24, with Kenya next at 30. The Kenyans are still hurting from the last qualifying tournament when, having seemingly done the hardwork by beating Namibia, they were a win against Zimbabwe away from automatic qualification.
Crumpling that day in Antananarivo still haunts them. The Kenyans are always something of an unknown quantity and the quality of their World Series Sevens team is such that there are a number of really classy players they could pull into the group.
Zimbabwe – languishing at a lowly 44th in the rankings – are also an unpredictable side. Everybody acknowledges their proud rugby tradition but as ever it depends if they can tempt any of their expats back to play.
A handful of experienced players such as Western Force scrum-half Ian Prior, Pumas lock Jannie Stander and young Bulls second row Eli Snyman have signed on for the campaign but new coach Peter De Villiers, the former Boks coach, would be hoping to attract a few more such as Marco Mama at Bristol and Mike Williams at Leicester. Get them on board and perhaps a few others and Zimbabwe have the potential to cause an upset.
Of the other nations it will be all about trying to nick a home win. Uganda’s fortunes fluctuate wildly but at their best the Cranes can be very competitive and they always tend to raise their game against Kenya. The Kenyans will be relieved to have home advantage for that game this year while a similar rivalry normally surrounds Morocco’s games with Tunisia.