HARARE - The Zimbabwe Under-19 sides’ shortcomings were extremely exposed by a well-drilled Namibian team that put them to the sword in the final of the Confederation of African Rugby (CAR) Youth Championship yesterday.

Namibia’s victory denied the Young Sables a fourth consecutive CAR title as they put up a insipid performance in front of their home fans.

The Young Sables turned out to be their own worst enemy as they missed a lot of tackles and made a lot of handling errors.

Zimbabwe’s forwards were bullied at the breakdown all afternoon conceding a lot of turnover ball and struggled to protect their own possession resulting in a lack of clean ball for the backs.

Namibia drew first blood as early as the first minute when centre Ethan Beukes charged down try after blocking Zimbabwe’s centre Kudzai Mashawi’s clearance.

Ethan Beukes’ brother Deslee easily converted to give the Namibians a 7-0 lead.

Deslee further stretched Namibia’s lead to 10-0 with a well executed drop goal.

Namibia went into overdrive as they scored two more converted tries through prop GD Orlam and wing Donovan Kandji.

Deslee capped of a good half with another drop goal while Zimbabwe only managed to score six points in the first period courtesy of Luke Masasire’s boot.

The Young Sables went into the break trailing 27-6.

Namibia started the second half strong as their skipper Gert Lottier opened the scoring with a converted try.

Zimbabwe backline finally managed to find their rhythm deep into the second period and put some respect to the score line with two tries by live wire Takudzwa Kumadiro and one by Kudzai Mashawi.

The Namibians kept on scoring for fun with their eighth man Wian Conradie and flank Dennis Jacob all joining in the fun running over the whitewash.