RUGBY NEWS

RUGBY NEWS CAR

N°11

A summer of rugby in Africa

July and August were filled with activities, proof of the good state of health of

rugby in Africa as well as of the progress made by teams on and off the field,

and by those organizing tournaments, trainings and conferences.

The work CAR has been putting in over years is now bearing fruits and the

global rugby family is delighted.

CAR Africa Cup 1A

Madagascar - 26th June / 6th July 2014

This was the long-awaited rugby event of the year for Africa! Indeed after three

years of hard-fought tournaments in the Africa Cup, we now know who is going

to represent Africa along with South Africa during the 2015 Rugby World Cup

which will take place in England in October 2015.

In addition to the Malagasy hosts, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Namibia competed in

Antananarivo. The format of this tournament in Madagascar was different from

the previous years since instead of playing semi-finals, third place play-off and

final only, we played a round-robin tournament where all teams played each

other and final ranking was determined according to the number of matches

won per team, bonus points scored, points scored, etc.

RUGBY NEWS

Three match days saw three different leaders. The first round saw Zimbabwe taking the lead after

defeating Madagascar 57 to 22 points while Kenya ended up second with a win over Namibia 24 to

20.

After the second round, Kenya took the lead by beating Madagascar 34 – 0 , Zimbabwe lost 20 to

24 to Namibia and dropped to the second place, Namibia was third and Madagascar fourth.

Kenya, Zimbabwe and Namibia were all still capable to qualify but Madagascar – very

disappointing all-through this tournament – was definitely out.

Third and last round : The first match was won by Zimbabwe over Kenya 28 points to 10. However

Zimbabwe missed a golden opportunity to score a bonus point and thus to immediately qualify for

the World Cup. Therefore the match between Namibia and Madagascar was to be decisive !

Namibia had to beat Madagascar with a bonus point and a score gap of at least 52 points.

Although the beginning of the match was uncertain, the Namibian team finally picked up the pace

and inflicted 89 points to the Malagasy team who only scored 10 points and overall performed

very poorly showing more haste to be over with the game than to contain its opponent.

Praise must be given to the excellent referees Luke Pearce from England, Lourens van der Merwe

from South Africa and Fransisco Pastrana from Argentina who were assisted by touch judges

Rodney Bonaparte and Stephan Breytenbach both from South Africa.

Lastly, a big word of thank you to the Malagasy Rugby Union for an excellent organization meeting

all expectations and for which they only received congratulations from all participants.

The winners M Lamoulie,L Pearce, R Bonaparte, L Van den Merve,

S Breytenbach, F Pastrana

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U19 A & B tournaments

Windhoek, Namibia and Kampala, Uganda from August 25th to 30th 2014.

Group A

4 teams – Namibia, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Tunisia - competed to qualify for the IRB U20 2015

JWRT which will take place in May 2015 in Portugal.

The format was as usual semi-finals followed by a match for the third place and the final. On

Wednesday 27th of August, during the semi-finals, Kenya started its match against Zimbabwe at a

terrific pace and won 27 to 20 over a Zimbabwean team who probably only lacked a couple of

minutes to be able to match the score.

During the second semifinal Namibia was largely victorious (78 – 03) over the Tunisians who to

their credit showed courage but were quickly overwhelmed by a more powerful and structured

opponent.

On Saturday, the match for the third place was won by Zimbabwe against Tunisia. However

Zimbabwe was inconsistent and although we all thought at the beginning of the game that Tunisia

was in for another heavy loss, their courage and the lack of consistency of the Zimbabweans

enabled them to score 26 points only losing to Zimbabwe 44 to 26.

We are pleased to note the very good on and off the field behavior of the Tunisian team who in

the past had not always demonstrated such exemplary attitude and this time made its country

proud.

In the final the Namibia team once again brilliantly demonstrated its skills and easily beat Kenya 52

to 17.

Namibia therefore won the tournament with 96 points scored in two matches and qualified for the

2015 JWRT. Kenya ranked second, Zimbabwe third and Tunisia with a 4th place is relegated to the

group B for next year.

To conclude, CAR congratulates the Namibian Rugby Union, Wessel Kotze and his team for an

excellent organisation and warm hospitality towards all the participants.

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The winners

Group B

The format was the same as for the Group A with 4 teams playing semi-finals, a match for the third

place and a final whose winner was to be promoted to the group A.

Participants were Madagascar, Uganda, Zambia and Senegal. Morocco was supposed to be

amongst the four but the suspension of the Moroccan Rugby Union from all CAR activities and

competitions gave the opportunity to Zambia to re integrate this competition. It was the first

participation of the Senegalese U19 team to an international competition which rewards their

efforts to develop a 6 teams domestic competition. Indeed it is a well deserved place for Senegal

whose union despite limited resources is always seeking to move forward and to encourage its

youngsters. Clearly an example to follow !

On the 27th of August during the first semi-final Madagascar who played in the group A last year

easily defeated Zambia 43 – 0. Whereas in the second semi-final Uganda had to struggle a bit

more to win by 23 points to 9 over a tenacious team of Senegal.

The play-off match on the 30th of August saw the first international victory of the Senegalese

team who beat Zambia 15 to 0. In the final Uganda was – somehow surprisingly – victorious over a

much feared team of Madagascar by 17 points to 8.

A young lady referee, Saudah Adiru from Uganda, was in charge of the match for the third place as

central referee. It was a first at this level of the competition and she was much praised for her

charisma, perfect knowledge of the law and excellent fitness level.

RUGBY NEWS

Madagascar Zambia Uganda Senegal

A strong legacy program around the Africa Cup 1A with First Aid in Rugby course , Get Into rugby

training and festival, workshop for ladies referees as well as for IRB educators.

FAIR

This workshop was organised in two stages. The first one gathered six Malagasy doctors and one

Senegalese doctor for a trainer’s course facilitated by Brian Carlin and Adama Bakhoum – RTC for

francophone area – and Denver Wannies – RTC for Anglophone area. This workshop aimed at

empowering the participants with sufficient knowledge so that they could in turn train others to

administrate first aid care in case of injury or health problem on and off the field. The second stage

of the course was intended for over 80 managers, coaches, referees and players who followed a

FAIR Level 1 course.

This training in FAIR is one of the top priority for the IRB and CAR seeing that the needs are huge

and the more people are trained in this regard the safer the stadiums and pitches will be.

Following trainers’ courses and FAIR Level 1 courses, the next step will be to equip all our unions

with training kits and move towards Level 2 trainings

RUGBY NEWS

Get Into Rugby

The Malagasy Rugby Union’s development officers – coming from 13 provinces – received a three

day Get Into Rugby training course leading hopefully too many more future participants in rugby.

This workshop was split between in-class and on-the-field sessions and was delivered by Charles

Yapo (Development Officer CAR zone West), Mohamed Dermouni (Development Officer CAR zone

North), and Erick Situma (Development Officer CAR zone South).

M Buckley giving GIR certificates

Ladies referees

Young Malagasy ladies referees are usually a bit intimidated when attending normal trainings with

men counterparts. CAR had therefore asked Michel Lamoulie acting as referee supervisor during

the AC1A to deliver a course for ladies only. 13 experienced ladies referees involved in male and

female competitions took part in this workshop organised by the Malagasy Rugby Union over a

period of three days.

Educators’ course

Adama Bakhoum – IRB Regional Training Coordinator for Francophone countries – organized a

new course for educators who did not receive their accreditation during the training course

delivered in March. Ten educators were considered not yet fully competent back then and a

follow-up was put in place with the assistance of the Malagasy Rugby Union’s trainers concluded

by a second chance to obtain their accreditations. Five were successful bringing the total number

of IRB educators in the Malagasy Rugby Union to 14.

RUGBY NEWS

Young elite referees

Nine young African referees under 25 years old of age were selected by CAR to spend a month at

the Referee Academy of Stellenbosch.

Six gentlemen - namely Victor Oduor(Kenya), Oscar Lambert (Namibia), Sylvain Mané (Sénégal),

Tolojanahary Rakotomala (Madagascar) Akram Garchi (Tunisia) Desmond Mc Donnell (Zimbabwe)

- and three ladies - namely Peris Mukoko (Kenya) Jamilah Saudah Adiru (Uganda), Amira Ben Fkhi

(Tunisia) - flew to South Africa on the 24th of July. During one month they have been immersed in

the world of professional refereeing. They officiated school and junior clubs matches, worked on

video analysis, were coached by experienced referees (Andre Watson formed part of the trainers

group), followed a strength and conditioning program, learnt communication techniques, went

through mental coaching sessions and improved their diet and nutrition, all in all a vast array of

refereeing skills and techniques.

At the end of this training period, Victor Oduor, Oscar Lambert and Akram Garchi flew to

Windhoek in Namibia to ref the CAR U19 A tournament. Sylvain Mané, Tolojonahary Rakotomalala

and Desmond McDonnell went to Kampala, Uganda for the U19B tournament.

Peris Mukoko, Jamilah Saudah Adiru and Amira Ben Fkhi will be involved in the future CAR Women

competitions.

Concluding the training period and the tournament, Akram Garchi was ranked first and will therefore be called as assistant referee during the IRB U20 JWRT which will take place in Portugal.

The 9 CAR referees

Get Into Rugby

Numerous trainings and events took place over the last two months and particularly during the

AC1A when a massive tournament with about 2000 children took place at the Makis Stadium. Let’

s note as well training courses in Niger, Chad, Mali, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Rwanda.

RUGBY NEWS

Makis stadium Antananarivo Skills at the “Père Pédro” foundation

Chad Kenya

Niger Nigeria

RUGBY NEWS

Rwanda Mali

Visit at Father Pedro’s foundation

During the AC1A, the Webb Ellis Cup was brought to Akamasoa with the National Malagasy team

(Makis). It was an emotional

CAR Executive Committee

During the AC1A, CAR Executive Committee gathered to prepare the 2015 season which will be the

start of the new qualification cycle for the 2019 RWC in Japan. We can expect an even stronger

training policy and a stronger support to the Get Into Rugby project which is dear to CAR President

Abdelaziz Bougja.

Oregan Hoskins – IRB Vice-Chairman – attended part of the meeting and congratulated the CAR

EXCO members for their hard work and the constant progress shown by CAR.

Note that the next CAR EXCO meeting will take place in Dakar, Senegal on the 11th of December

ahead of the elective general meeting of the regional association.

RUGBY NEWS

The CAR exco with O Oskins

Values carried by rugby are our treasure, let’ s protect them so that our sport remains what it is

and keeps building women and men of greater quality.

Janick Barthès