{"id":51928,"date":"2024-07-05T10:26:44","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T08:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=51928"},"modified":"2024-07-05T10:26:44","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T08:26:44","slug":"los-pumitas-too-strong-for-junior-springboks-in-stellenbosch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=51928","title":{"rendered":"Los Pumitas too strong for Junior Springboks in Stellenbosch"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_51930\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-51930\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-51930\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/TL_2234310-400x307.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"307\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-51930\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">STELLENBOSCH, SOUTH AFRICA &#8211; JULY 04: Bruce Sherwood of South Africa U20 during the World Rugby U20 Championship 2024 match between South Africa and Argentina at Danie Craven Stadium on July 04, 2024 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. (Photo by Ashley Vlotman\/Gallo Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The race to the World Rugby U20 Championship 2024 semi-finals took several twists and turns on Thursday as England, Ireland and New Zealand maintained their 100 per cent starts, Argentina and Italy secured famous victories and Wales recorded their first win of the tournament.<\/p>\n<div class=\"social-share-reveal \" data-widget=\"social-share-page\" data-body=\"\" data-custom-url-hash=\"\">\n<p>The race to the World Rugby U20 Championship 2024 semi-finals took several twists and turns on Thursday as England, Ireland and New Zealand maintained their 100 per cent starts, Argentina and Italy secured famous victories and Wales recorded their first win of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Los Pumitas and the Azzurrini saved the best until last as Argentina overpowered the Junior Springboks to win 31-12 at Danie Craven Stadium and Italy held on to beat Australia for the first time, finishing as 17-12 victors at Athlone Sports Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Argentina are now level on points with hosts South Africa in Pool C, five points behind leaders England, who beat Fiji 48-11 on day two.<\/p>\n<p>Ireland leads Pool B, meanwhile, with two bonus-point victories from two, four points ahead of Australia with Italy two points further back in third.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, New Zealand produced a stirring second-half comeback to edge France in a 53-point thriller, and top Pool A ahead of Wales and Les Bleuets with one match to play. The Welsh had earlier beaten Spain 31-10.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Argentina had only beaten South Africa once in 11 attempts at this level before kick-off. However, they ran their hosts incredibly close in Australia in May and started quickly in Thursday\u2019s Stellenbosch downpour.<\/p>\n<p>Los Pumitas, who lost to England on day one, certainly weren\u2019t scared of their opponents and took the lead in the fourth minute when hooker Juan Greising Revol profited from a powerful lineout drive.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa looked stunned and fell further behind in the eighth minute as number eight Juan Pedro Bernasconi powered over in the right corner.<\/p>\n<p>Fly-half Santino Di Lucca missed the conversion to leave the score at 12-0 but Argentina weren\u2019t done there and another rolling maul led to Revol going over again early in the second quarter.<\/p>\n<p>Di Lucca again failed to add the extras and although the Junior Springboks grew into the contest as the half wore on, errors cost them as they struggled to deal both with the physicality of their opponents and the conditions.<\/p>\n<p>It meant Argentina led 17-0 at halftime but having been 21-7 in front at the break at Sunshine Coast Stadium two months ago, only to lose 30-28, they knew they had work to do in the second half.<\/p>\n<p>Crucially it was Los Pumitas who scored next, in the 48th minute, and again it came from a lineout, albeit in very different circumstances to Revol\u2019s first-half tries.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps evidence of the pressure the Junior Springboks were under, Argentina captain Efrain Elias picked off a Luca Bakkes throw on the hosts\u2019 5m line and gleefully dove over to score.<\/p>\n<p>Di Lucca added his second conversion of the night but Argentina were pegged back for the first time just four minutes later as Elias\u2019 second-row partner Felipe Bruno Schmidt sacked a South African lineout drive illegally and referee Takehito Namekawa awarded a penalty try.<\/p>\n<p>Namekawa also showed Bruno Schmidt a yellow card, but Los Pumitas managed to see out the next 10 minutes without conceding further while a player light.<\/p>\n<p>And as the rain continued to bucket down on the Danie Craven Stadium pitch, making the ball ever more slippery and harder to control, so the clock continued ticking on South Africa\u2019s hopes of a comeback.<\/p>\n<p>Argentina made sure of victory with a little over 10 minutes remaining as flanker Juan Penoucos charged down Liam Koen and then beat the Junior Springboks fly-half to the bouncing ball to touch down.<\/p>\n<p>Di Lucca added the conversion to put Los Pumitas 31-7 in front and revitalise their hopes of making the semi-finals even after a late yellow card for Felipe Ladesma and the Bathobele Hlekani try that followed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The race to the World Rugby U20 Championship 2024 semi-finals took several twists and turns on Thursday as England, Ireland and New Zealand maintained their 100 per cent starts, Argentina and Italy secured famous victories and Wales recorded their first win of the tournament. The race to the World Rugby U20 Championship 2024 semi-finals took [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":51930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51928","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\/51928","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\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}