The Welwitschias, currently known as the Windhoek Draught Welwitschias due to sponsorship by Namibia Breweries Limited, are a

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

team that often participates in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

n domestic competitions. As of 2021, they are regular participants in the annual Rugby Challenge tournament, having previously played in the

Currie Cup The Currie Cup is South Africa's premier domestic rugby union competition, played each winter and spring (June to October), featuring teams representing either entire provinces or substantial regions within provinces. Although it is the premi ...

and

Vodacom Cup The Vodacom Cup was an annual rugby union competition in South Africa. Annual Vodacom Cup competitions were played between its inaugural season in 1998 and 2015 and was contested between February and May each year. The Vodacom Cup was the succes ...

. They are based in

Windhoek Windhoek (, , ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 202 ...

and play their home matches in the

Hage Geingob Rugby Stadium The Hage Geingob Stadium (previously known as the South West Stadium) is a rugby stadium in Windhoek, Namibia. It is named after Hage Geingob, the President of Namibia. The stadium has a capacity of 10,000.Namibia national team.

History

Prior to Namibia's independence in 1990, the region – then a South African

mandate Mandate most often refers to: * League of Nations mandates, quasi-colonial territories established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 June 1919 * Mandate (politics), the power granted by an electorate Mandate may also r ...

known as

South West Africa South West Africa ( af, Suidwes-Afrika; german: Südwestafrika; nl, Zuidwest-Afrika) was a territory under South African administration from 1915 to 1990, after which it became modern-day Namibia. It bordered Angola (Portuguese colony before 1 ...

– often participated in South African domestic competitions, such as the

and

Lion Cup The Lion Cup was a premier domestic rugby union knock-out competition in South Africa. The first Lion cup was held in 1983 where the Free State took the first title facing Transvaal at Ellis Park. The last season was held in 1994.http://152.111.1. ...

. South West Africa played in the Currie Cup for the first time in

1954 Events January * January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...

. In

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...

, they reached the semi-finals of the competition after beating in the Division B final, and in

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...

they achieved their highest-ever finish of third in the competition. At the end of 1989, South West Africa withdrew from all South African domestic competitions due to uncertainty surrounding Namibia gaining independence. In 1999, a side from Namibia called the Kudus participated in the 1999 Vodacom Cup competition. They were rebranded as the Welwitschias (named after the

Welwitschia ''Welwitschia'' is a monotypic gymnosperm genus, comprising solely the distinctive ''Welwitschia mirabilis'', endemic to the Namib desert within Namibia and Angola. ''Welwitschia'' is the only living genus of the family Welwitschiaceae and orde ...

plant, one of the

national symbols of Namibia National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ...

) for the

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

and

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanist ...

editions of the competition, finishing bottom of their section in all three seasons. They withdrew from the competition prior to the 2002 season, only returning after an eight-year absence to take part in the

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

and

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrates ...

competitions. They finished ahead of the in the 2010 event, but returned to the bottom of the log in 2011. After again not entering a team for the next three seasons, they returned to play in the

2015 Vodacom Cup The 2015 Vodacom Cup was contested from 6 March to 30 May 2015. The tournament was the 18th edition of the Vodacom Cup, an annual domestic South African rugby union competition, and was played between the fourteen provincial teams in South Afric ...

in preparation for the

2015 Rugby World Cup The 2015 Rugby World Cup was the eighth Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial rugby union world championship. The tournament was hosted by England from 18 September to 31 October. Of the 20 countries competing in the World Cup in 2011, there was on ...

held later that year. In 2015, it was announced that the Welwitschias would return to playing in the Currie Cup competition on an annual basis from 2016 onwards. The Eastern Province elephants have put 110 points on this team in a single match.

Current squad

The following players were included in the Welwitschias squad for the 2019 Rugby Challenge series:

References

External links

Official site
{{Rugby union in Namibia Namibian rugby union teams