Namibia star Burger unfazed by prospect of heavy defeat

NAMES like Kees Lensing and Jacques Burger will mean little or nothing to the vast majority of Irish rugby fans this morning.

But if Namibia even so much as extend Ireland in tomorrow night’s World Cup Pool D game at Stade Chaban Delmas in Bordeaux, then they may become very familiar indeed.

Lensing, who plays Currie Cup in South Africa with the Natal Sharks, resisted overtures from the Springboks a few years ago, preferring to stay with Namibia, while Burger is set to join the seemingly never ending exodus of Southern Hemisphere players to Europe after the World Cup when he links up with second division French team Stade Aurillacois.

Should Namibia give Ireland a troublesome time on the same ground where Munster scored a famous Heineken European Cup victory over Toulouse in 2000 (it was called Stade Lescure in those days), Lensing and Burger will assuredly have had a lot to do with such a situation.

The sun continued to shine all day in Bordeaux yesterday with temperatures in the mid to high 70s but that won’t be a problem for either side given that the match doesn’t kick off until 8 o’clock local time. The “green army” has yet to arrive here and match tickets are unlikely to be scarce although Enniscorthy RFC and London Irish flags were yesterday flying outside the Connemara Bar in Place Gambetta and a steady trickle is expected over the next 24 hours or so.

Burger, 24, has played for the Griquas in the Currie Cup since turning professional in 2005 and claims to be unfazed about the likelihood of a big hiding from the Irish.

“We expected their coach to talk about scoring as many points as possible against us because in such a competitive pool, it is important that they get their points total up,’’ said Burger from the Namibian team’s headquarters in Marseilles. “We need to get used to it because Argentina and France will want to do exactly the same to us. Everyone expects us to be hammered but that doesn’t matter so long as we give it our best shot. We have never won a World Cup match but Georgia is a possibility. Our target is to beat them and anything above that will be a bonus.”

Ireland wound up their preparation for the game yesterday with Denis Hickie fit and well again after a bout of tonsillitis. Forward coach Niall O’Donovan insists that they go into the game with total respect for the opposition while accepting that anything less than four tries and a big win on the scoreboard will not suffice.

“We saw the tapes of Namibia’s games against Georgia, South Africa and Romania and their forwards are strong,’’ he stressed. “Their back-row trio are all good scavengers. We realise we haven’t much rugby under our belts but we would still expect to hit the ground running. If we have ideas of getting out of the group, we have to beat Namibia and beat them well.’’

O’Donovan stressed that he agrees with the decision to put out the strongest side against Namibia, pointing out that the injuries to keymen Shane Horgan and David Wallace didn’t happen during a match at all. He tried to play down the significance of the poor performance against Italy and bristled at the suggestion that the game was a debacle.

“If we thought we’d hit the ground running in the warm-up games, we wouldn’t have them at all,’’ he declared. “You must remember that a lot of these guys haven’t played rugby in four or five months.

“We had some good games all last season. In the autumn, we played well against Australia and South Africa and against England and Italy at the end. And yet, there were little holes in all of those games. The day we get it all right will be a great day. That probably won’t happen but that’s what we’re striving for. We are a little undercooked going into this World Cup. We’re behind in the physicality stakes and we’ve worked at that in training and we’re lucky to have the games against Namibia and Georgia before taking on France and Argentina.”

Few who saw the match against Italy would argue with that point. A repeat would hardly be good enough to account for Namibia not to mind the big guns later on in the tournament. However, you can’t help feeling that this is just the kind of game ideally suited to Ireland’s needs, one in which David Wallace can be eased back into action for the first hour or so after a long lay-off and also one in which the anticipated quality ball from the pack as a whole will release Ronan O’Gara, Brian O’Driscoll, Gordon D’Arcy and the other backs to run in a host of tries.