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Samoa opened their RWC 2027 Final Qualification Tournament with a win over Brazil and have named a strong side to take on African runners-up Namibia, who surprisingly lost their opening fixture to Belgium 22-15. These two experienced Rugby World Cup teams lock horns on Thursday, 13 November 2025, at the Sevens Stadium.
This will be the third time the two teams have met, with Manu Samoa winning both previous encounters comfortably, by an average margin of 32 points. The last time was back in 2011, though, and current Namibian Director of Rugby, Jacques Burger, captained the Welwitschias in the loss.
Both sides suffered yellow cards in their opening games, and keeping a full complement of 15 on the field will go a long way to ensuring a win, but we wouldn't bet on either team doing so.
The Samoans will again be in the driving seat as they chase a 10th RWC appearance, but Namibia themselves have not missed a tournament since qualifying for the first time in 1995. For Namibia, they lost each of their previous 10 Tests against sides from Oceania by an average margin of 47 points.
The big talking point of Samoa’s selection is the inclusion of former Wallaby prop and 34-year-old Scott Sio in the starting lineup as he will debut for the Pacific Islanders, who will be ready for an African backlash, as Namibia have to win the game to keep their own dreams alive. Sio played for the Wallabies 74 times and last played for them against New Zealand in September 2022.
Head Coach Tusi Pisi will look to win just his second game and has again selected Theo McFarland to captain the side (although shifting from blindside flanker to the second row), and he has made a five-personnel and two positional changes for this match.
Both Vaafauese Apelu Maliko (left wing with 4 line breaks and 10 carries in the opening game) and Jacob Umaga (fullback) retain the positions they scored tries from against Brazil. The son of former All Black Tana Umaga racked up 18 points. He will be among many exciting talents Namibia will have to contain. Another is Miracle Faiilagi, who starts at flank and had a hugely successful Super Rugby Pacific campaign.
There is no Michael Curry in the matchday squad, but the lock made the most tackles for Samoa against Brazil (11).
Namibia have made five personnel and three positional changes to their starting line-up as former Springbok Pieter Rossouw, who was appointed as head coach ahead of this tournament, looks to save their RWC 2027 campaign.
There are two changes in the tight five in tight-head Johan Coetzee and second-row Johan Retief come in, while the backrow consists of Prince Goaseb, Max Katjijeko and Adriaan Booysen, who will need to be on top of their game to halt the Samoan front-foot ball.
Max Katjijeko made the most tackles in the opening loss (13), as well as carrying the ball six times. Namibia missed 36 of their 152 attempted tackles in the loss to Belgium, and similar stats on Thursday night will see the Samoans have a field day at their expense.
Among the Namibian reserves, both Armand Combrinck and Andrew Kearns are in the match-day 23.
We think Namibia will be much better in this game, but the Samoans are looking to build momentum and should have too much firepower across the 23-matchday squad to seal a second win and a possible finale with Belgium if they beat Brazil on Thursday too.
