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Junior Springbok vice-captain and centre Wandisile Simelane, who capped off the World Rugby U20 Championship with the honour of being the joint top try-scorer with six tries, looked back at the competition with fond memories as the team prepared to depart for South Africa on Monday night.<\/p>\n
The Junior Springboks finished the tournament \u2013 hosted in the south of France \u2013 in third place after delivering a strong performance in the bronze playoff to defeat New Zealand 40-30.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a fantastic tournament,\u201d said Simelane, who scored a hat-trick in the team\u2019s second pool match against Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came all the way to France as 20-year-olds, and we were based in a very small town called Gruissan. This experience allowed us to learn about different cultures and meet new people, even though the language barrier was a challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a rugby perspective, this a mentally and physically demanding competition. There are only four days in between games, so it asks a lot of the players. But it was a great experience for me and the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of being handed the vice-captaincy after Damian Willemse was ruled out because of injury, Simelane said: \u201cIt was easy because everyone played their part, so it was a fantastic experience. This was the first or second time that I took up a leadership role in a national team, and it motivated me to bring that 5% extra every time I had the opportunity to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simelane shared Junior Springbok coach Chean Roux\u2019s disappointment of not advancing to the final, but he was pleased that they finished the tournament on a winning note against New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was awesome to finish the competition on a high note,\u201d said Simelane.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost by one point to a very good England team in the semi-final, which was heart-breaking and very disappointing for us. But to bounce back and beat a very good and motivated New Zealand team was fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking forward, Simelane said he hoped to meet up with his team-mates in a few years and look back at their experience in France after building a brotherhood since their preparation began in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bonds we created as a group were very special,\u201d said Simelane.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got closer as a group in the five months we were together, and one could see how we grew together as a squad. It will be nice to catch up in a few years and talk about our experience in Gruissan.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Junior Springboks will arrive South Africa on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Issued by SA Rugby Communications<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Junior Springbok vice-captain and centre Wandisile Simelane, who capped off the World Rugby U20 Championship with the honour of being the joint top try-scorer with six tries, looked back at the competition with fond memories as the team prepared to depart for South Africa on Monday night. The Junior Springboks finished the tournament \u2013 hosted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8277","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\/8277","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=8277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}