Junior Boks groan to victory
IF THE Junior Boks manage to replicate some of the moments they produced in their win over Georgia in their second match of the World Rugby Under-20 Championship, their chances of making it all the way to the final certainly can’t be too bad.
There were some outstanding moments that resulted in brilliant tries by the Junior Boks, but it was by no means a perfect performance.
The Junior Boks got the first try of the match after their forwards took the ball through a number of phases, and No 8 Juarno Augustus eventually found a gap in the Georgians sturdy defence and powered through for the try.
Fullback Jean-Luc Cilliers added the conversion.
The Georgians crossed the try line shortly afterwards when Koba Jimsheleishvili went over, but the roaring home crowd’s cheers quickly turned to booing when the TV match official confirmed that the skipper lost control of the ball after some good pressure by flyhalf Manie Libbok in the tackle.
There was something to shout about when leftwing Davit Meskhi produced some individual brilliance as he broke through tackles and side-stepped his way past defenders, before producing a beautiful offload and showing top support play to spark great interplay that eventually sent lock Lasha Tabidze over for the try.
Scrumhalf Gela Aprasidze converted the try to take the score to seven-all.
But Chean Roux’s team upped their game when outside centre Wandisile Simelane sidestepped his way past three defenders to go over for the try and Cilliers added the extras.
And the Baby Boks didn’t stop there. After Simelane’s try, Cilliers sparked a great counter-attack with a neat chip kick in his own 22, and after a series of kick-aheads, pivot Libbok scooped the ball up and effortlessly ran in to score and take the half-time score to 19-7.
After a solid start to the second half, Georgia were made to pay for conceding a number of soft penalties when replacement prop Guram Gogichashvili was sent to the sin bin.
After winning a scrum contest, the South Africans got their fourth try when scrumhalf Embrose Papier put winger Yaw Penxe to score.
The Junior Boks impressed again when Simelane got his second, rounding off stunning team play that saw the ball travel through numerous pairs of hands and running lines that penetrated Georgia’s defence to score their fifth try. Replacement back Curwin Bosch added the conversion.
Georgia got a chance to score in the third quarter when Tedo Abzhandadze put in a beautiful grubber for Giorgi Gogoladze to run onto and dot down for the try. Aprasidze made no mistake with the conversion.
The Baby Boks got another try when inside centre Damian Willemse created magic with his feet as he stepped past defenders to sending a perfectly-timed offload to Libbok to score. Bosch added the conversion to the leave the final score 38-14.