Peter Jackson: Once more unto the breech for perennial losers Namibia

Two factors set Namibia apart: one, their capacity for absorbing beatings on a fearful scale and two, their unfailing ability to recover and keep coming back for more

BACK FOR MORE: Namibia captain Pieter-Jan van Lill runs with the ball during his time with Bayonne in the Top 14. Pic: Pascal Guyot/AFP via Getty Images

The Grand Old Man of international rugby is about to hurl himself back into the longest lost cause in World Cup history.

Pieter Jan van Lill resurfaces this weekend on leave from a club immersed so far beneath the French Top 14 that he could almost have stepped out of the pages as the harpooner in Jules Verne’s classic novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Seas.