Despite going down 47-12 against the South African Blue Bulls, Namibia’s senior rugby team assistant coach Darry de la Harpe remains optimistic about the future and says a lot of positives were taken away from the defeat.

Namibia’s rugby fifteen, popularly known as the Welwitschias, on Saturday faced the Blue Bulls in the Officeconomix Goodwill Cup at the fully packed Hage Geingob Stadium in Windhoek.

The Bulls emerged victorious after a hard-fought match. 

The match also served as preparation for the Welwitschias for next year’s Rugby World Cup qualification in France.

Speaking to this publication yesterday, De la Harpe admitted that the Bulls were a better side during Saturday’s match, but they however took home plenty of positive lessons to build on in the near future. 

“Of course, the Bulls were a better team and they played well. They managed to score much against us. They showed how better conditioned their players are and we didn’t have enough time to train together, which costed us a lot. We picked up a lot of positive stuffs from the match, especially the importance of playing at the highest level of intensity,” he said.

On how important the match was in term of preparations, De la Harpe said that the game was of vital importance for the local players, who were included in the team. It gave them enough competition to prepare for upcoming crucial ties.

“This match was very important, I know the team was filled with foreign-based players but there are those that will be included in the final team from this Welwitschias squad, and I can say that this was a very important match because our players need to get used to the high level of playing. We also got our minds well trained,” he said.

- mkambukwe@nepc.com.