U20 Rugby Championship 2025
-
-
@Bovidae said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
We need Vakasiuola to be fit as there isn't a power lock selected. Eti and Tengblad are both tall and lean while Baker is a converted lock who plays more at no.8.
I'd worry about the scrum against bigger opposition.
If Vakasiuola can't recover in time, the obvious replacement looked, to me, to be Frazer Brown but he didn't play the SR U20 tournament either, I think. Maybe also a long-term injury? Randall Baker, from what I've seen, does seem to be robustly built.
The scrum might be a real issue. It's very rarely a real strength of the NZ U20s but this cohort does look weak in that area. Relatively small hookers and skinny locks certainly won't help. I have high hopes for Tamiano Ahloo but he's more of an all-rounder than a scrummaging expert, I feel.
The good news is that the developments in the game are starting to favour attack. And this team could be very potent offensively. So I presume they'll focus on unlocking different ways of scoring rather than focus on their defence.
-
Would have loved to have seen a Probables vs Possibles, like a warm up game. This could iron out any kinks or test these locks vs bigger locks to prepare them for bigger teams. Would also be a good insight for 2026
-
@Bovidae thats interesting re Mika. Good player but clearly that shows theres something missing in Tiatia's game (defence perhaps?).
-
@Left-Right-Out-0 said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
@Bovidae thats interesting re Mika. Good player but clearly that shows theres something missing in Tiatia's game (defence perhaps?).
Mika is a long-termer for the U20s as well. He only turned 18 last month. He will still have two more years in the U20s set up.
Mika could play for the NZ U18 side this year.
Sav's Sidelines: Son of Silver Ferns assistant coach links with Southland rugby
Sav's Sidelines - the weekly column that looks at Southland sport, from the grassroots to the professional ranks.
-
@Left-Right-Out-0 We don't know who is in the full standby players list yet. It's really only the PUs that have released that info so far.
-
@Left-Right-Out-0 said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
@Bovidae unless they see Tiatia as a midfielder i doubt theyd take him and Mika.
I'd be interested in whether Harry Inch is also on standby or whether Mika has somewhat overtaken him as the young 10 being focused on.
-
@SouthernMann from the outside looking in i would say Inch isnt in the frame this year. Mika had a better U20 campaign. Then again, i thought other players had better campaigns then some that made NZ U20 so what would i know 😆
-
@Left-Right-Out-0 said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
@SouthernMann from the outside looking in i would say Inch isnt in the frame this year. Mika had a better U20 campaign. Then again, i thought other players had better campaigns then some that made NZ U20 so what would i know 😆
I really liked the 9-10-12 combo of Pledger, Muliaina and Harvey. Had a nice mix to it.
I think Muliaina has the potential to be a fully contracted Lander probably in 2027. His last year eligible for the U20s. Big potential that guy.
-
Does anyone know more about Xavier Treacy’s background? He looks to have come over from the Melbourne Rebels system and seems, by all accounts, to have lived most of his life in Australia (an Instagram-post from the Melbourne Harlequins club mentions that he played for them “from Under 8 to 18”, with Treacy “moving to NZ in 2024”.)
I’m assuming he has Kiwi origins or parentage? Otherwise I’m not completely sure how he would be eligible for the side. World Rugby U20 tournaments have, as far as I know, similar eligibility-criteria to the senior sides (i.e. parentage or 5-year residency).
-
@Mauss said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
Does anyone know more about Xavier Treacy’s background?
I'd never heard of him. As you say, WR has stricter eligibility rules compared to SANZAAR. Holland and Brial were selected to play in 2022 (in Aust) but wouldn't have been able to go to a WR-sanctioned tournament.
-
Now that we know the make-up of the NZ U20 squad for the U20 Rugby Championship, it makes sense to take a look at some of their upcoming opponents and gauge their respective strengths and weaknesses. I recently watched some SA rugby age grade games – specifically, the SA U18 game against England U18 from late 2024 and the two recent SA U20 trial games against Georgia U20 from February ’25 – and I thought it might be interesting to share some thoughts on these games as well as some broader facets of SA age grade rugby.
Predicting the future performances of the SA U20 side might be one of the harder tasks within age grade rugby. While other U20 teams’ success will often depend on their ability to get the set-piece right, the South Africans very rarely suffer in either the scrum or the lineout. While this would seem like an excellent platform for continuous age grade dominance, in reality it has only led to a series of unpredictable tournament results.
Four tournament wins (1999, 2002, ’05 and ’12) followed by a whole heap of third place finishes (12 out of 26) with the occasional slip out of the top 4 (’01, ’11, ’24). It’s not particularly easy to explain why South Africa has only won 1 U20 tournament since 2008, as they’ve had some really good teams (2014; 2019) which came up just short. In these cases, the mind often wanders towards certain mental hurdles, which is not that surprising considering that they’ve 9 lost semi-finals at the U20 tournament. South African commentators typically explain this lack of finals success through a number of factors, such as rugby politics, poor coaching and, perhaps most prominently, the lack of meaningful competition for players aged 18 to 20 between schools rugby and provincial rugby.
All of which is fair enough, I suppose, but I don’t know enough about these things to get into those factors. Here, I just want to look at some of their players coming through in this cohort, their playing style under new coach Kevin Foote and whether these innovations might get them over some of their historical hurdles.
The problem of predictability
One potential reason for the SA U20s lack of ‘ultimate’ success since 2012 has been their predictability. Close your eyes and imagine, if you will, a stereotypical South African rugby team. What do you see? I see a ball being hoofed into the air, travelling a seemingly endless distance. I see a 12, built like a flanker, winning turnovers and ignoring his outsides. I see a front-row, spending as much time grinding their opposites into mush during a scrum as they are getting their breath back while the play is going on at the other end of the field. I see a defence rushing up and in. And I see an attack, throwing passes to the floor because nobody in the backline knows where they’re supposed to be.Now this is somewhat harsh (apologies to readers from the Republic). But when watching that SA U18 match against England U18, it was difficult not to get a sense of déjà vu. The young South Africans won their game, to be clear, with their talented first five, Vusi Moyo, possessing a howitzer of a boot which he used to good effect. The SA U18s played a pressure game, mirroring their senior side’s up-and-in rush defence, while the front-row was putting the screws on their counterparts. But there was also a consistent lack of ambition, a refusal to use the backline as a platform for attack, and no willingness to try different things in attack. Again, to be clear once more, that is a perfectly fine way to play the game of rugby. But unpredictable, it’s not. With a bit more starch and a bit more luck from the ref, the English U18s would fancy their chances in a rematch.
It’s not hard to see how that trickles down into the next level. At U20 level, lots of other countries have big packs. Last year, we saw the Argentineans and English have senior-sized forward groups and both teams were able to effectively counter the South African pressure game, after which the SA U20s struggled to get their game going. One crucial factor for future South African success at U20 level, in other words, will be their ability to play in a different way when facing teams who can match them in the forwards and at set-piece time.
It's at this point where the appointments of Kevin Foote as the new Junior Bok coach, as well as Johan Ackermann as coaching consultant, is starting to make sense. Looking at their two recent matches against Georgia U20, it does appear as if Foote, the former Melbourne Rebels head coach, wants the Junior Boks to play with a bit more width and ambition. Foote developed a strong attacking identity at the Rebels, while Ackermann was responsible (alongside Swys de Bruin) for creating the most attacking SA Super Rugby side in recent history, the 2013-’17 Lions side. It looks part of a greater plan concocted by, who else, Rassie Erasmus to tackle one of the most consistent issues of the SA U20 side, their disjointed attack and all-too predictable game plan.
The fact remains, of course, that these were trial games against Georgia – with a lot of rotation and subs throughout the two games – so there’s limits to what it tells us. But one would expect that Foote and his coaching staff would use these games to give his players a sense of what they’re trying to achieve. Foote said as much afterwards: “We have a better understanding of how we want to play, although there still a lot of work to be done on the training pitch. [...] Our focus is on real intensity, speed, physicality, set pieces, and match management. The U20 Rugby Championship will be a really good and exciting challenge.”
Early in the second game against Georgia, we could catch a few glimpses of what Foote and Ackermann are trying to instil within the side:
Clear intention to keep the ball alive in attack
There’s the use of backdoor passes and offloads to keep the attacking movement going and to create space for the winger to finish. The movement isn’t particularly clean – with the prop’s offload being both blind and hitting the floor – but it ultimately worked. Furthermore, it shows genuine attacking ambition, something which the SA U20s have often lacked.
When going beyond the first pod of forwards, the SA U20s often found success and were able to break the Georgian line of defence. Forwards are clearly being encouraged by the coaches to distribute and even offload, which was something the Georgian defenders found difficult to deal with:
The ball consistently moves beyond the first pod, catching the Georgian defence off guard
The South African attack in a wide-wide set-up from set-piece. Again the ability of the SA forwards to offload is crucial for the score.
So far, so good. There are, however, still some teething issues with this new gameplan, closely interlinked with some deeper structural issues within SA rugby. Three issues came to the fore in these two games. First of all, a more expansive gameplan requires a lot of skill-work and decision-making, both for forwards and backs. Throughout the games, this caused a relatively high-error rate, through knock-ons, forward passes and wayward offloads, as players weren’t necessarily expecting some of the more impromptu decisions made by their teammates on attack.
Dropped ball after lineout
After some early go-forward, the attack quickly loses structure, leading to muddled running lines and a forward pass
The support runner isn’t expecting the tip-on pass, leading to a knock-on
A second issue is closely related to the first and refers to the more ingrained habits of South African players. The different nature of the two games against Georgia made this clear: while the SA U20s never trailed in the second game, in the first match the score was much closer, not in a small part due to some interesting calls by the Georgian ref. But whereas the SA U20s became more and more daring in the second game as their lead grew – even starting to offload and go wide in their own half – they became more and more conservative and narrow in the first game, when they started chasing the lead and experiencing time pressure. This shows the still- ingrained habit within South African rugby players: when the going gets tough, they start looking for the physical confrontation, taking one-off carries and chasing box-kicks like there’s no tomorrow.
Foote and Ackermann will be wary of the scenario that their players abandon the expansive gameplan at the pointy end of games, as it was clear that their wide approach was working well. Herein also lies an opportunity for their opponents. Opposition teams will look to build an early lead against this team and sucker them into more predictable – and more easy to defend – gameplans. The ghost of predictability will not easily be vanquished.
The first five issue
A third and final issue which became apparent, both throughout these games and different teams throughout the SA rugby pyramid, is that of the first five-eight and their lack of control. The typical habit within South African teams is to play off 9 and go through the forwards. This again is not a problem per se, only when the opposition team is able to predict and counter the style of play, after which it is mainly up to the 10 to find alternative ways of steering the team around the park.I was reminded of this issue when recently watching the URC, with the Lions facing the Glasgow Warriors up in Scotland. There was a terrible wind, which dictated much of the play. The Lions, facing into the wind in the 1st half, struggled to get out of their half and were constantly under attacking pressure from the Warriors. But what was most noticeable was the lack of urgency from the Lions. An entire half passed and I still had no idea who the Lions 10 was (it was Gianni Lombard, by the way, typically a fullback). Rather than take control and try different things in order to get the attack going, there was remarkably little intervention from the first five.
In the three games that I watched – SA U18 vs. England U18; two games of SA U20 against Georgia U20 – there were three different 10s: Vusi Moyo (SA U18), Matthew Coetzee (SA U20, Georgia 1), and Dominic Malgas (SA U20, Georgia 2). Both Moyo and Coetzee have good passes on them but they have a tendency to stand quite deep and be rather selective with their interventions rather than have the ball in their hands as much as possible. Malgas did better in this regard but it remains to be seen whether he can keep demanding the ball when the side is chasing the game rather than cruising with a lead.
This is an issue for the SA U20s, as both Foote and Ackermann enjoyed their greatest success with sides who were largely defined by a ball-dominant first five who could play flat to the line: for Foote, Carter Gordon at the Rebels and for Ackermann, Elton Jantjies at the Lions. It also makes sense for Foote and Ackermann to emphasize this style of play more and demand more involvement from their 10, as it looks like the back three poses the biggest attacking strength of this SA U20 side. Gilermo Mentoe (15), Cheswill Jooste (14) and Chijindu Okonta (11) are all genuinely rapid, combine well with each other and are able to cut opposition defences open. It makes sense that the coaches want the ball in the hands of these players, who can break the line and make things happen out of nothing.
Cheswill Jooste is lethal against a fragmented defence
Jooste with the break before passing inside to his 9. Kicking poorly against this back three is a bad idea
Gilermo Mentoe with the excellent line and finish
Mentoe combining the two-handed carry, swerve and searing pace, mirroring another particularly effective U20 fullback from recent past, Will Jordan
Mentoe breaking the line with ease once again by carrying the ball in two hands
Okonta can use his length to step out of tackles and slip through
You want to get them involved in the game as much as possible, not just on the counter-attack and kick-chase, but in general play and through set-piece strikes as well. But this requires a 10 who is able to get them the ball and organize an attack which puts them into space.
Foote’s choice for 10 might then fall to utility back Dominic Malgas, as he looks to be a player who is most able and willing to play flat and attack the line. Then again, he might opt for the value of experience and turn to 2024 Junior Bok Liam Koen, who wasn’t involved in the Georgia tour and represents a more typical SA 10 who stands quite deep and kicks for distance. Will Foote and Ackermann go for the predictable and conservative? Or will they dare to wade into more untested waters in their search for the first SA U20 tournament success since 2012? We will find out at the U20 TRC.
Next up: the Junior Wallabies will be taking on a Japanese U23 XV later today, which will provide a first glimpse of Chris Whitaker’s plans for the side.
-
@Mauss there is no way you arent involved in the U20 setup or some other team with the amount of analysis you do. Id put my leg on it😆
Rugby royalty, returning flyers headline Australia U20 side to face Japan U23s
