{"id":65110,"date":"2025-02-20T10:26:37","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T08:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=65110"},"modified":"2025-02-20T10:26:37","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T08:26:37","slug":"freezing-but-positive-start-to-junior-boks-tour-of-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=65110","title":{"rendered":"Freezing but positive start to Junior Boks\u2019 tour of Georgia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – AUGUST 15: Batho Hlekani of South Africa during the U18 International Series match between South Africa and France at Stellenberg High School on August 15, 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Shaun Roy\/Gallo Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Junior Springboks got their short tour of Georgia off to a good but cold start with a live training session against the Lelo Saracens club in Tbilisi on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The SA u20s have experienced sub-zero and snowy conditions since their arrival in the Georgian capital on Monday, but they are taking the freezing temperatures in their stride and went about undeterred with their preparations.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the Junior Boks encountered snow \u2013 vastly different to the high temperatures at their base in Stellenbosch in recent weeks \u2013 when they left for the Lelo Saracens club.<\/p>\n

The SA u20s had a good workout of about one hour against the club\u2019s senior men\u2019s team and afterwards, Junior Bok coach Kevin Foote said he could already see value in the tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a nice hit out today and we are grateful for Lelo Saracens for hosting us in such a splendid way,\u201d said Foote.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bitterly cold out here \u2013 probably minus two degrees when we left for the field \u2013 but that (the challenging weather conditions) is very good for our boys\u2019 mentality, because it\u2019s something we cannot control, unlike our preparations and our performances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foote said the tour squad started with about 50 minutes of training in units (backs and forwards separately), performing live lineouts, scrums and mauls against their hosts, with the effort and performance of the youngsters leaving their coach a satisfied man afterwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very impressed with our scrum efforts today,\u201d said Foote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought our pack did well, and our lineout is obviously something that we focus on a lot, alongside our mauls and maul defence. The players also did some set-piece defence, attack, and some skills work, and then we got together for our team rugby session.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also working hard on our execution, which is another big focus area for us, making sure we all know our roles and what good execution looks like. All our coaches, Melusi Mthethwa and Lumumba Currie (assistant coaches), as well as Johan Ackermann (coaching consultant), did a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The time together in a foreign environment is proving to be a good factor for the Junior Boks as they continue with their preparations for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n

Following Wednesday\u2019s live training session against the club side, the Junior Boks will now turn their attention to the two outings against their Georgian u20 counterparts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t be prouder of how the management staff and players are getting together, and we really looking forward to our hit-out against the Georgian u20 side on Sunday, which we expect will be tough opposition,\u201d said Foote.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a good camp so far, we\u2019ve trained hard in tough conditions and Thulani Nteta (strength and conditioning coach) is making us do some great fitness work, to make sure we are well conditioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel we are getting our combinations right, as well as our game model. We got some work to do on our fifteen versus fifteen scenarios, but I really feel that we are making good progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rolling subs will be used in Sunday\u2019s match against the Georgia u20s, which will allow Foote the opportunity to give all the members of the touring squad game time.<\/p>\n

Issued by SA Rugby Communications<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Junior Springboks got their short tour of Georgia off to a good but cold start with a live training session against the Lelo Saracens club in Tbilisi on Wednesday afternoon. The SA u20s have experienced sub-zero and snowy conditions since their arrival in the Georgian capital on Monday, but they are taking the freezing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":65120,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65110","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\/65110","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}