Namibia is where?

By saracens4life
August 9 2011

After the Premiership Final back in May this year, in which Saracens had overcome Leicester Tigers 22-18 to lift their first title, the Times Rugby Correspondent had this to say about Namibian back-row Jacques Burger: "If only Namibia had 14 more like him, they would be racing favourites for the World Cup. Ferocious".

Ferocious is THE word to describe Jacques Burger on the rugby pitch. Ask Tom Varndell: back in early 2010, when the Saracens flanker remained a relatively unknown quantity in the Premiership, the Wasps and England winger tried his luck with an audacious counter-attack; he ended up dumped on the floor with a cracked rib. Of the 171 tackles Burger made in the most recent season, I would imagine that a fair number have caused similar damage.

It is this desire for hard graft and monstrous collisions, described by Saracens Head Coach Mark McCall as an "indomitable work rate and physicality", which first attracted him to the future Sarries Head Coach Brendan Venter back in 2005 when he coached him in an African Leopards composite team, and since his arrival at the London club to replace Wikus Van Heerden, it is these same qualities which have now propelled him into the spotlight of the English game. His most recent accolade is Player of the Season for the Premiership Champions: high praise indeed.

Given the rugby values espoused by Burger, this is perhaps unsurprising. From his humble but rugby-manic background in Namibia, the importance of physical strength and bravery were very appealing to him - no wonder he puts himself about so much in the collisions. In last year's Premiership final, when Leicester were pounding away at the Saracens line in the dying seconds, needing a try to win the game, the Namibian was sent into the backline to man-mark the Samoan colossus Alesana Tuilagi - and that paints a pretty good picture of what sort of a tackler Burger is.

His second core value is the emphasis of the team over the individual, something which he has found at Saracens, and which explains his irrepressible desire for work. When asked on his choice of position in the back row, he said it was because "you can always get stuck into the game", adding that Northern Hemisphere rugby suited him very well because it is "hard and physical". Now think back to that phrase Mark McCall used, "indomitable work rate and physicality", and think back to poor Tom Varndell's cracked rib - Burger is a ferocious warrior on the pitch.

Now comes the second point raised by that Stephen Jones quote: the irrepressibly confrontational Burger is the leader of the Namibian national side. Now, if they did have 15 Jacques Burgers they would be a force to match any other, but the reality is they don't: in fact, the Saracens back row is the ONLY professional member of the Namibian squad. Most of the squad are based in Namibia, where they are inevitably playing quite a low standard of rugby, relative to other 'minnows' who have squad members playing in England and France.  What chance, if any, do the "Welwitschias" have then in a group containing Fiji, a side packed with natural talent and hard-hitters, Samoa, on a high after a recent victory over the Wallabies, Wales, magical on their day, and South Africa, the reigning champions?

Realistically, the answer to that question is virtually none. You can assume that they will bring a typical South African physicality, no doubt epitomised by captain Burger, but there is bound to be a deficit in skill levels and organisation compared to their Tier One rivals. The question this raises is whether there is any value in including nations which are so lacking in rugby infrastructure in tournaments involving the best, most professional sides in the world. Unless more players can follow the footsteps of Burger - and here's hoping they can - by earning professional contracts in neighbouring South Africa or further afield, it seems unavoidable that Namibian rugby will remain pretty stagnant for the foreseeable future.

For now, they will have only national pride to play for, but as they showed against Ireland four years ago, that can count for a lot, and with a player and leader as inspirational as Burger at the helm, they can keep dreaming of that first World Cup victory, and good luck to them....