THE Junior Springboks were straight back to work on Wednesday following their heart-breaking 24-22 loss against England in the semifinal of the World Rugby Under-20 Championships in Tbilisi‚ Georgia on Tuesday, writes Craig Ray.
A late try by England No 8 Zach Mercer condemned the Junior Boks to a third consecutive semifinal defeat‚ while England advanced to their fifth straight final.
England will meet New Zealand in the final‚ after the latter beat France 39-26 in the other semi.
SA will take on the French in the bronze medal match in a repeat of their Pool C opening game earlier in the tournament that ended in a 23-23 draw.
The Junior Boks only have themselves to blame for losing to England. They dominated the set pieces and had England under huge pressure at times‚ but were unable to fully capitalise.
Despite the excellent platform supplied by the forwards‚ the backline was unusually error-strewn. Fullback Manie Libbok made a host of howlers‚ flyhalf Curwin Bosch’s tactical kicking was inaccurate and defensively the backs struggled.
Centre Damian Willemse and Libbok both missed tackles on Mercer before he scored the winning try.
Assistant-coach Louis Koen‚ who is also SA Rugby’s acting High Performance manager‚ believes the team would learn from that disappointing experience and pick itself up for the match against France.
“We had opportunities against England‚ but we also had soft moments and could not put them under enough pressure to convert into points‚” Koen said after the match.
