Argentina leading at half-time against Namibia

Argentina 27 Namibia 7 HT

World Cup outsiders Namibia raised the roof at Gosford tonight with a defiant performance against highly-rated Argentina.

Having restricted the Pumas to just 13 points with five minutes of the first-half left, the concession of two quick tries appeared to signal the end of Namibia’s brave resistance.

But, in stoppage time, centre Du Preez Grobler spotted an opening on a rare Namibian forward raid and shoved his way through Hernan Senillosa’s tackle to score the try which brought a capacity crowd to its feet.

Given their lowly status in rugby’s pecking order, Namibia would have hoped to start well and hope to keep it going.

As it was, they were behind inside three minutes as the Pumas exposed a complete lack of defence down the blind side, former Northampton hooker Federico Mendez charging home off Nicolas Fernandez Miranda’s pass after a couple of powerful Argentinian forward surges.

Fearing carnage, the capacity 20,000 crowd got solidly behind the Africans, who responded with some enterprising play, led chiefly by scrum-half Hakkies Husselman, who used every method possible to try and force the Pumas backwards.

Namibia were aided in their cause by some slack Argentinian handling, which wrecked a succession of running moves.

What the Africans did not have though was the pack power to consistently prevent one of the most ferocious scrummaging machines in the game from inflicting heavy punishment.

So, when the Pumas were awarded the feed at a scrum five metres from their opponents’ line, the tactic was obvious. Get the ball in and push – hard. It worked to perfection as number eight Pablo Bouza grounded the ball over the line with the Argentine scrum still set.

Amazingly, fly-half Gonzalo Quesada, top scorer in the last World Cup, slammed his conversion against the right upright, although he didn’t miss with his next shot, a penalty in front of the posts after Namibia had been caught offside.

As the half hour passed, tiredness appeared to be creeping into the Namibian ranks and when Melrick Africa knocked on under no pressure close to his own line, Argentina launched two surges at their opponents’ line and eventually opened the play out to centre Juan Fernandez Miranda who burst home from 10 yards.

When Argentina forced another scrum close to the Namibian line on their next attack, they got another strong push on and would certainly have scored had it not been for an clear African infringement, which left referee Nigel Williams no option other than to award a penalty try.

Namibia weren’t finished though and Grobler got the score his side’s endeavour deserved even if it was unlikely to make much difference to the end result.

The arrival of Felipe Contepomi at the interval appeared to signal the Pumas' intention to adopt a wider approach and so it proved within five minutes of the re-start as the former Bristol player fed Martin Gaitan, who raced in at the corner.

When Argentina next found themselves in an attacking position close to their opponents’ line, a first penalty forced a scrum, the second turned into yet another penalty try as Namibia found no legal way of stopping the Pumas pack.

It was too easy now and Gaitan fell over the line for his second after 55 minutes as Argentina advanced towards the half-century, aided by a much-improved goalkicking performance from Quesada.