Western Suburbs have a second shot at a semi final spot when they travel to Mariental for a rematch after an arbitrator ruled in their favour. This will be the only MTC Rugby Premier League on August 28.
The match was rescheduled after Suburbs appealed a decision by the Namibia Rugby Union (NRU) to award the full six points to Mariental after they had refused to travel to Stampriet, which is 30km east of Mariental, for a scheduled league match. This happened in round five of the season.
The problem came up when the Mariental stadium had been booked for a Classic Clashes match and that meant that the league match could not take place there.
Robert Thompson, the manager of Suburbs, said that the original decision by the NRU was unconstitutional.
“When Mr Steenkamp and the Union made that decision they did not call us for a disciplinary hearing. Therefore it was unconstitutional. They were wrong in the decision they made,” Thompson said.
“We were on the verge of travelling to Mariental for our match when we were told that they had changed the venue to Stampriet.”
“There are no proper medical facilities in Stampriet and no decent playing ground there. There are also no evacuation facilities incase we had a serious injury,” Thompson added.
“We were not going to put our players at risk,” he continued.
“It was a case of Mariental not planning properly for their home matches.”
The arbitrator, Mr Clemence Daniels, ruled that the match should be replayed and that the NRU should cover all the travelling expenses of Suburbs. The six points that had been awarded to Mariental by the NRU were taken away.
Mariental are currently fourth on the log with 36 points while Suburbs are fifth with 32 points.
Suburbs have to win the match with a bonus point to make sure that they make it to the semi finals, because Mariental have a superior score difference. They also have to make sure that Mariental does not manage to get a bonus point.
Both teams have won six matches, but Suburbs are behind on bonus points. They have six while Mariental managed to rack up 12 bonus points.
The last time the two teams met in round 12, Suburbs narrowly won the match 29-26 at Suburbs Park. Mariental have however only lost one of their home matches and that was to Wanderers 16-14 on June 19.
“We must just go for the straight win with a bonus point because they have a better points difference,” Thompson said.
“We hope we can click and play well on the day,” he continued.
United are the other team that still have an outside chance of making it to the semi finals. They have 36 points and will go to the semi finals only if Mariental lose and Suburbs fail to get a bonus point.
Wanderers qualified for the semi final play offs when they beat Mariental 64-25 last Saturday. This win meant that they will go into the semi final play offs as the number one team and will face the team that will finish in fourth spot.
Wanderers are the only team to finish the season with 11 matches won out of the 14 played.
Reho Falcon will finish second on the log and therefore will face Rehoboth who are third with 43 points. Falcons have 50 points, four points less than Wanderers who have 54 points.
Rehoboth won their last match against Unam 47-0 on Friday evening. The match was abandoned after the lights went out twenty minutes before full time.
This result means that Unam will finish at the bottom of the log with 18 points after they won only three of their 14 matches played. Kudus finish in seventh position after they won five of their matches and have 31 points.