van Vuuren misses Ireland clash

Rudi van Vuuren’s hope of becoming the first player to appear in both the rugby and cricket world cups in a single year is on hold after the Namibian fly-half was ruled out of Sunday’s Pool A encounter with Ireland at Aussie Stadium.

Van Vuuren is struggling to overcome a calf strain which kept him out of the African’s 67-14 defeat to Argentina last Tuesday and now faces a race against time to get himself back to full fitness for the remainder of Namibia’s four-match group program.

Coach Dave Waterstone has taken drastic action after the heavy mid-week defeat, making three changes to his starting line-up.

Flanker Wolfie Duvenhage, winger Vincent Dryer and full back Ronaldo Pedro all come into the line up as Waterstone seeks a poor competitive performance against an Irish side who went into the tournament ranked number three in the world.

Team: R Pedro; D Mouton, Du Preez Grobler, C Powell, V Dreyer; E Wessels, H Husselman; K Lensing, J Meyer, N du Toit, H Sensakel, A Graham, S van der Merwe, W Duvenhage, S Furter (capt).

Replacements: C van Tonder, A Blaauw, H Lintvelt, J van Lill, N Swanepoel, M Africa, M Schroeuder.