So it’s a little over a week to go and while everyone is focusing on the two crunch matches at the end of the qualifying stage, namely France and Argentina, I thought I’d better bring you up to speed on one of our other opponents. Now I have to be honest, I didn’t have a clue where Namibia is until starting this post. I’ve learnt a lot in the last five minutes, here’s the important stuff:

Namibia general facts:

• Population: Roughly 2 million (2.5 people per square kilometre!)
• Languages: English, German, Afrikaans
• Currency: Namibian Dollar (10 Nads = 1 euro)
• Capital: Windhoek

Namibian rugby facts:

• Currently ranked 24th in the world
• Rugby Union Founded in 1990
• Their team is nicknamed the Welwitschias

Head to head:

• Ireland have played Namibia three time before and suprisingly the Namibians hold a 2-1 record on us:

• 20/7/1991 – Namibia 15 Ireland 6
• 27/7/1991 – Namibia 26 Ireland 15
• 19/10/2003 -Ireland 64 Namibia 7 (RWC)

• Their last game, a world cup warm up, ended in a thrashing by the Springboks:

• 15/08/2007 – South Africa 105 Namibia 13

So I don’t want to jinx anything at this early stage but I think it’ll be good to even up the 2-1 advantage they have over us and maybe bag a bonus point for all our effort!