Its the Baby Boks title to lose

GARETH DUNCAN of keo says the Baby Boks went from tournament failures to semi-final qualifiers within 40 minutes. Now they’re in a strong position to win their first Junior World Championship crown.

In sport, there’s a fine line between failure and success. On a cold Tuesday night at the Cape Town Stadium, the SA U20s emphasised this in a famous 28-15 comeback win over England.

Trailing 3-0 at half-time and needing a bonus-point triumph to secure a spot in the semi-finals, they were doomed. It was during this time that many pundits and people on social networks slated Dawie Theron for the lack of impact he’s made as head coach since his appointment in 2010. But a miraculous turnaround after the break saw the host team score four tries against a challenging and physical English outfit. The Baby Boks saved the day – and most likely Theron’s job.

That 40-minute period was the kind of quality the talent in this Baby Bok squad initially promised. But during their earlier group games against Ireland and Italy, and the first half of the England clash, the nation witnessed a bulk of elementary mistakes and frustrating rugby. The team struggled to run five phases or more on attack, there was a poor range of skills and a lack of initiative, while their overall set-piece efficiency was poor – a major worry considering that most of these players are our future Springboks.(A few maybe - how many Nuffield cricketes become Proteas etc?))

But when the team gelled and the structures and plans in place were executed effectively, the Baby Boks looked damn good.

It’s taken three rounds, but finally we saw signs of an impressive collective effort. Despite their struggles and inconsistencies, the Baby Boks have scraped into the semi-finals. And now they have built the perfect platform to kick-start their title drive.

Heading into this tournament, four-time champions New Zealand were considered favourites to lift the trophy. However, they haven’t been as convincing as the classes of 2008-11. They don’t have an imposing pack and their backline play hasn’t been awe-inspiring like before.

While many will defend their first-ever Junior World Championship defeat to Wales as it came on a near unplayable field in Stellenbosch, they have done little to suggest they will go all the way. They thumped Samoa 63-0 in their first game, but they still committed many mistakes and could’ve scored much more against the Pacific Islanders, who are the weakest team in the competition (Samoa have only scored two penalties in their three defeats, and have conceded 152 points and 24 tries). They also struggled against Fiji in the first half of a 33-12 win as the latter led 5-0 for the first half hour.

For the first time in five years, the Kiwi U20s look beatable.

Wales – who finished fourth in the U20 Six Nations – are the big surprise this year. However, they haven’t experienced a challenging test in the competition so far (they enjoyed easy wins over Fiji and Samoa in their other group games), and are likely to be exposed in their second encounter against New Zealand in the semi-finals on a better pitch at Newlands.

The Baby Boks will face Argentina, who also surprised as they won Pool C ahead of France and Australia. The Pumitas’ physical pack has been central to their success and their backs have benefited from this.

However, the hosts recorded a 2-0 series win over a full-strength Argentina squad in May. This was achieved without their Super Rugby stars. This gives the SA U20s the mental edge and they should be seen as favourites to win this fixture.

On paper, the Baby Boks have the better team compared to the other three semi-finalists. The only issue is consistency. If Theron’s men can play to their potential – like they did in the second half against England – they should win their first Junior World Championship title.

Yes indeed it all part of the coming world rugby domination!! Kiwis will be gently eased into their new status by losing Junior World Cup.

 I agree they have turned around their mediocre start to the tournament. I however will not go as far as the headline states that it is theirs to lose. 

Play like they did in the second half and they should win Ek. Consistency now is the key.

I think that the headline and article is basically correct.   I said eleswhere that  there are a few weak players in the squad and mentioned in particular the full back, one prop and the no 8.   Any suggestions - only one was made and that was to play Liebenberg at 8 and leave Du Toit at 7- but the question remains, what about the other two positions?

Any suggestions please

theres to lose ????? sorry but they are barely in it to win. need a proper 15 man game where they are lacking at the moment. AB's as much as it bruns the throat are by far the team to beat

muncher of carpets please accept the rugby facts before and realise that the baby boks should win this. They demolished England in that second half. Play like that for 80 minutes and the cup really should be theirs. Play like they did in first half and it will not  be. However the odds are more on them playing well as the team is settling down.

 Hey guys wait a minute. They did finnish well, and played a brilliant second half. This does not make them consistent. I disagree with the headline based on that. You might as well say It's new zealnds to lose cause they finnished the group stages well. Or it's wales to lose cause they the first team ever to beat the blacks. Boet we need to win it and work hard to win it. It ain't ours yet. And It aint ours to lose. I won't get on the we are so good bandwagon here. This is going to be hard. and there is a lot of hard work before we can claim the crown, If we can.

Beeno i admire your patriotism and i wished i had the same level of optisim that you had but based on what i have seen so far we are lacking man to man in skills and decision making. the forwards are up there but the backs are as with the most of ou SA sides just plain rubish. handre is so deep in die pocket that his backline runs very static. looks like dawie is taking cues from coetzee from the stormers of how not to attack with a backline. brendon venter is also not the best attacking coach either so we will need to once again play the high pressure try to spoil the opposing teams ball and hope they stuff up approach. i do understand rugby and the facts are man for man the baby boks will need to raise there level a lot to compete with the AB's....sad but true. the english side is just like there senior side. size obsessed and there tactics mirror that. there defence in the second half was rubbish. the try of the boks no 13 was due to slack first tier defence. from there they was bulldozed by the boks forwards. the AB wont be so slack.

if the jrBoks believe the title of the article, then they have already lost.

the un20 NZ team lost by 3 points to wales playing tight rugby in a swamp. they were severly caught out, but some top defense form the welsh who IMO have the best squad in the comp really left them hurting, after all they are the first NZ team to taste defeat in the JRWC and NZ hasnt been shy in letting them know, while continuing to urge them to redeem themselves.

i cant see the welsh doing it twice in a row and TBH, the loss has now given the NZers a hunger they havent had before due to complacency fueled by not losing. in short the loss has done the kwis a world of good, cos now they want to unleash a world of hurt.

GO NZ U20!!!

Sasu

I wayched all the games and I do not think that the Junior All Blacks were really good.   Yes I do think that the muddy conditions at Coetzenberg was the great leveller in that game - but you players should have done better than they did.   They were also not really top of the class in the Fiji game.

I do not share your point of view on the backline.   Pollard is still a school kid and he can be coached to play a different game - he is in reality very good and can get the backline moving.   The centers and wings are in fact better than there All Black counterparts from what i have seen thus far of them.   I think the outstanding player from the backlines of both teams is in fact Jordaan - not surprised since he played for the Sharks in Super 15.   

Even though you can say I am biased - I do think the Junior Boks will win a final against the Junior AB's.  In any event I do believe SA has an easier semi than the AB's

@clevermike,

i agree the conditions were a great leveler ofe the NZ/wales game, but as u said the players should have played better then they did, inexeperience and large player changes between the samoa game and the wales game 11 in total, 13 if u include the bench.
on top of that this welsh squad is very underrated, theres a lot of talk about players in the jrBoks and OZ u20 team having spXV players, but the welsh lads have tom prydie whose played for wales and their 7s team. they got habbersfield who was a thorn in NZs side cos the dude was everywhere against NZ. habbersefields is in the ospreys squad and most of the team are in either osprye, cardiff blues or scarlett, all of them heinken cup competitors.

i have only been able to watch one jrBok game and that was the irish match. i wasnt impressed to be honest, ecpecially considering the hype with their spXV players (a luxury NZu20s dont have, as the NZRU in all their infinite wisdom have said the spXV gets priority over the under 20s).
i know they were able to turn things around, but im really not worried about them as much as i am the wlesh. i will say that before johan goosen got injured in his highlanders game, i was blogging on other forums that the jrBoks will win this tournament and i hate seeing players injured, especially insanely tamented players, but all those teams can count their lucky stars gossens not playing, cos the jrBoks would be odd on favourites IMO.

the one thing i see counting against NZ was the lack of team synergy cos of the way penny chopped and changed his team, but from here on out it will be the strongest team possible.
it is definately the weakest NZ team ive ever seen at this level, but brynn hall and hugh blake are yet to play to their potential and both are very higly rated.
the loss to wales was bad for NZ in terms of our former 100% record, but good in teaching the boys that u cant run ur troubles out every single time and sometimes u have to play the percentages, although IMO if u cant figure that out already, especially that welsh game, then leadership must be questioned.

but i am biased and i know ive only seen one jrBok game, but i still cant help but feel the welsh is the bigger hurdle in the finals, hope im right, but if not, ill take my humble pie with lots of custard, lol.
and if both argentina and wales win, well lets just both agree to look the other way, LMFAO, :D
 

Sasu

The Irish game was a disaster that should never have happened.   The problem was basically that te back line became disfunctional because of an atrocious display by the half backs (Griesel and Jantjies) and were both left out of the subsequent two games.   I would not say that was an example of what should have happened.   In the later two games they played Pollard - a school kid -  as number 10 and the idiotic scrummie was also replaced.   As a result the back line started to function properly and the youngster really got the back line going.   An example was the Small-Smith try against the POMS - an absolutely beautiful display of back line play.

The problem in the competition is that in all cases it was difficult to watch both All Blacks and Springbok games since they were played simulataneously and broadcasted on different TV channels in SA.   The only way to catch up on the games was to watch subsequent highlight packages - which would proably not have been available in New Zealand.

I still believe that the Irish game should never have been lost by the Junior Boks and that the team selection for that game was disgraceful.    It is for that reason that I believe the Junior Boks would field their best team in the semi-final and the final and that would NOT include Griessel and Jantjies.   For that reason I believe that the Junior Boks would win fairly easily.