The South African Under-20 team overcame a committed France team in front of their home crowd to record a third successive victory and clinch a place in the Junior World Championship semi-finals with a 26-19 victory (halftime 8-7) in La Roche-sur-Yon on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Junior Springboks twice trailed in the match \u2013 and were matched for tries, three-all \u2013 but they showed tremendous defensive commitment and character to resist a home nation desperate to record a significant victory in their campaign, having already lost to England.<\/p>\n
Dawie Theron, the Junior Springboks\u2019 coach, praised his team for clinching a vital victory against a very committed French team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that the French would be passionate and very committed because they had so much to play for. They were lifted by a fantastic crowd and gave it their all. However, I am proud of the effort by each of my players because the win is what matter most, and we deserved it in the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guys stood firm, made some vital tackles and in the end we clinched it with a great try by Cheslin Kolbe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Theron added that he was not happy with the efforts in the scrums, and that his team will work hard in the next four days to correct their mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe missed Luhan (de Bruin, suspended prop) and there was some puzzling calls made against us. The coaches will go and have a look at the video and try to figure out what went wrong. We are in the semi-finals and will give it our best effort in the next match,\u201d said Theron.<\/p>\n
Junior Springbok captain, Ruan Steenkamp, said the ferocious French forward pack made it difficult for them to gain momentum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey disrupted us from the start and forced us into mistakes. We could not get the momentum that we wanted but we showed a lot of bravery and heart out there. We played much better towards the end, especially during the last ten minutes. I am just relieved that we managed to beat them because they are a dangerous team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will now regroup and prepare for the semi-final,\u201d said Steenkamp.<\/p>\n
The International Rugby Board must still confirm the semi-finals, but South Africa \u2013 who finished top of Pool A – will most likely play against Wales on 18 June in Vannes.<\/p>\n
Scorers:<\/p>\n
South Africa \u2013 Tries: Dries Swanepoel, Luther Obi, Cheslin Kolbe. Conversion: Handr\u00e9 Pollard. Penalties: Pollard (3).<\/p>\n
France \u2013 Tries: Thibault Regard, Marco Tauleigne, Baptiste Serin. Conversions: Enzo Selponi, Serin.<\/p>\n
Issued by SARU Corporate Affairs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The South African Under-20 team overcame a committed France team in front of their home crowd to record a third successive victory and clinch a place in the Junior World Championship semi-finals with a 26-19 victory (halftime 8-7) in La Roche-sur-Yon on Thursday. The Junior Springboks twice trailed in the match \u2013 and were matched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}