Junior Boks ‘excited’ by French challenge
SA RUGBY High Performance manager and Junior Springbok assistant coach Louis Koen is confident that their players are well prepared for their last pool game of the World Rugby Under-20 Championship against France tomorrow.
The Junior Boks will be looking to make it three out of three against the hosts in Narbonne after beating Georgia and Ireland in the first two games.
Chean Roux’s team currently top Pool C with 10 points following the two bonus-point victories, while France are in second place with nine points.
The top team in each pool along with the next-best placed team overall will progress to the semi-finals.
“The players have been focusing on rest and recovery in the last two days, so the work begins again late this afternoon (yesterday) to prepare for the match against France – we’re all excited and keen for the challenge,” said Koen.
The SA U20s played five warm-up matches before they departed to France – two against Georgia and a threematch UK tour during which they beat Scotland, Wales and England. And after a very successful preparation period prior to the international tournament, Koen believes that those friendlies have equipped them for what’s to come.
“They have been in this situation before, as we tried to replicate this tournament on our UK tour by playing three tough games in a very short space of time. So the players are well prepared, they are in the right frame of mind and are really excited to go out there and do the job,” he said.
“The fact that France are playing at home could be a positive or negative for them. They could either draw energy from their supporters in a full stadium, or it could place pressure on them.
“But our focus is on what we would like to achieve in the game. There are things we need to improve on and be better at, so we are focussing on the processes and plans that we would like to put in place, and we will approach things from whistle to whistle.”
The Junior Boks were put under a lot of pressure by Georgia in the first half of their encounter, but they fought back in the second half to seal the deal.
Against Ireland, they again struggled in the opening half and managed to pull away in the last quarter. But those rough patches didn’t bother Koen much.
“The players have gained confidence from the fact that they can see the hard work they put in for the last five months in Stellenbosch is coming through in the last 20 to 30 minutes,” Koen said.
“We spoke a lot about how Test rugby works in the last two years, and sometimes you have to build an innings to get the results in the closing stages of a match. So the players are excited and they are looking forward to another opportunity to take a step forward in the competition.”