The national senior women’s rugby team were on Saturday handed a heavy defeat in their first international game against Zambia at the Hage Geingob Stadium in Windhoek.

Namibia only managed to score one try in a match that ended 5-75 in front of cheerful spectators.

Jane Malisa opened the scoring for Zambia just five minutes into the first half, but Suzie Rennie missed the conversion. The dominant Zambians were at it again in the 10th minute as the Namibians failed to contain their fast game, with Natasha Musonda running in their second try, which Rennie converted to extend their lead to 12 points.

Zambia’s Dorothy Kasonka, Lilian Mukosha, Queen Nachinga and Elizabeth Chibomba each ran in a try, while Veronica Lungo only converted once from the spot and missed the other. Rennie also converted once and missed once.

Namibia’s only try of the match came in the 29th minutes, when Alicia Gertze managed to run away from Zambia’s strong scrum. Gertze, however, missed the conversion.

The halftime score was 5-36 for Zambia.

In the second half Zambia showed that they are a well-oiled machine as they continued dominating the match and ran in seven more tries.

The Namibian team tried in vein to score another try in the second half.

Zambia’s tries came from Kasonka (three tries), Musonda (two), while Rennie and Loveness Nambela each ran in a try.

Out of the seven tries, Kasonka only managed to convert two, missing the other five.

In an interview with the media after the match, Namibia’s coach, Christel Kotze, said the match was an eye opener for them.

“I am happy with the hard work that the ladies put in today. We could see that our opponents are more experienced than us but. in the future, we would like to prepare better as well as play more test matches before competing in international matches,” she said.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency