2024 NZ Schools Rugby
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I was interested in taking a closer look at Liam Van Der Heyden’s scrum performances, because it could vary from being very dominant (for example, against Tauranga Boys’ College) to being severely under pressure (against Napier Boys’ High School).
After looking at a lot of Hamilton scrums, I personally feel that the crucial moment for Van Der Heyden seems to occur at the moment of the engage. If Van Der Heyden wins the hit and forces the opposing loosehead to scrum at his preferred (high) height, he is able to use his considerable mass to simply overpower his opponent, forcing the loosehead to come up while still moving forward himself. The problems usually occur when he faces short and sturdy looseheads – such as Damian Annandale of Napier Boys’ or Palmerston North Boys’ Sione Taeiloa) who are able to force Van Der Heyden to scrum lower or are able to use footwork in order to shift the big Hamilton tighthead’s weight across. When this occurs, Van Der Heyden does tend to be a bit passive as he is not yet able to quickly find solutions for when this happens, like attacking the seam between the loosehead and hooker, shifting his own bind and weight, or using footwork to reassert physical dominance.
By no means do I want to claim that these are easy adjustments to make. Nick Bishop recently wrote a pretty interesting piece (https://www.rugbypass.com/plus/turnaround-tyrel-epitomises-the-foggy-state-of-the-bledisloe-cup/) where he shows some good examples of how Lomax (a tall tighthead) combatted someone like Nche (pretty much the prototype of the short, powerful loosehead). While it’s difficult to reconstruct exactly what Lomax does to reassert superiority over Nche, it does appear to be a combination of seam/bind/footwork.
It would be ridiculous to expect a Y12 prop like Van Der Heyden to show a wiliness similar to that of a 28 year old AB tighthead (although you could see the young tighthead trying certain things here and there, for example, by turning more inwards when pressured by the New Plymouth Boys’ High loosehead and hooker). If Australia U18 has a short powerful loosehead, the reality is that the NZ Schools scrum might struggle a bit (I don’t think Jennings, the Southland Boys’ tighthead, would solve these issues either). But Van Der Heyden has so many qualities (fitness, work-rate, terrific presence in the maul, breakdown threat, carry, solid shoulder in the tackle) for such a big body, that you would take the occasional scrum penalty in order to ensure he gets plenty of minutes on the field. He is a special player.
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The Australia U18 squad has been named today (see @Bovidae's post).
I've only been able to read some reports of the trial between Australia U18 and the ASRU Schools side, there was no video footage freely available. I was surprised the trial games were so close, I was expecting the U18s to comfortably blow out the Schools side. So either the Schools team is better than expected or there might be some issues with the U18 side.
The standouts of the U18 team seem to be in the loose forwards and the backline, with the most high-profile athletes seemingly destined to end up in the NRL: the number 8, Heinz Lemoto (Penrith Panthers), the winger Heamasi Makasini (Wests Tigers) and the fullback Rex Bassingthwaite (Sydney Roosters).
There are some rugby league highlights available of Lemoto:
It doesn't really say much of his ability in the upcoming games, but, if anything, he should be a handful to tackle. I wasn't always convinced of some of the individual defensive efforts of the NZ Schools loosies, so Lemoto might have a good impact.
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@Bovidae You can find the lineups of the Australia U18 Gold and Green teams for the trials here:
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There was some cross-over of the Gold and Green teams, as several players of the Green team were on the Gold U18 bench against the ASRU Schools team. Most of the players who didn't make the cut were in team Green, all starting players of Gold U18 seem to have been selected.
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So it looks like Tevita Tatafu is the lock that is injured for NZ Schools? I'd say that's a pretty big loss for the team as I presumed he would be both the primary target in the lineout as well as the caller. Makes sense that they've gone for Tocker at blindside as a good lineout target, although that might put some more pressure on the breakdown.
Bronson Van Der Heyden also seems like a new addition to the Barbarian U18s. They should provide a good challenge for the Australia U18s.
It looks like the games will be livestreamed on NZ Rugby's Youtube channel.
I won't be able to watch the games live, unfortunately, but hopefully they'll just be available for replay afterwards.
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Australia U18
1 Kingsley Uys - The Southport School
2 John Grenfell - Nudgee College
3 Edwin Langi - Eastern Suburbs Rugby Club
4 Will Ross - Padua College
5 Isaac Fonua - The King's School
6 Eli Langi - Brisbane State High School
7 Tom Robinson (c) - UQ Rugby Club
8 Heinz Lemoto - The Scots College
9 Angus Grover - St Igantius College, Riverview
10 Jonty Fowler - St Joseph's College
11 Heamasi Makasini - Newington College
12 Josh Takai - Brothers Rugby Club
13 Frankie Goldsbrough (vc) - Easts Rugby Club
14 Tom Howard - Marist College Ashgrove
15 Rex Bassingthwaighte - The Shore SchoolReserves
16 Ewald Kruger - GPS Rugby Club
17 Nick Hill - Barker College
18 Jonah Rangiwai - The Southport School
19 Avery Thomson - GPS Rugby Club
20 Luca Cleverley - Newington College
21 Sam Blank - St Augustine's College
22 Finn Mackay - St Laurence's College
23 Zach Fittler - The Scots College -
A squad update to the Barbarians U18s.
Scores from today:
Australia U18 57 - 47 NZ Barbarians U18 (HT: 38 - 21)Aust has some big forwards who are very good ball-carriers, particularly the LH prop Kingsley Uys, blindside flanker Eli Langi and no.8 Heinz Lemoto. Their 1st 5 Jonty Fowler controlled play well and the left winger Heamasi Makasiini was very dangerous. As you can see from the score the NZ Barbarians U18s didn't have any problems scoring themselves. Some inaccurate play and turnovers proved costly in the end.
NZ Schools 91 - 5 Samoa U18 (HT: 46 - 0)
As expected, this was a thrashing. Samoa had their moments but handling errors and getting on the wrong side of the ref didn't help. No.8 Saumaki Saumaki was the POTY for me (at least 3 tries), and his Nelson College teammate and 1st Harry Inch pulled the strings in the backs. A big game also from Nico Stanley (who also got a hat-trick). The relatives/parents of some of the Nelson College players were sitting next to me and were very vocal.
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I've just been able to watch the games. The Barbarians U18s will probably be disappointed with some moments in defense, where the Australian U18s were just able to get over the line a little bit too easily. That being said, the Aussie U18s were really efficient on turnover ball, some great offloads and kicks leading to tries.
And as the game went on, and the Australia U18s realized they could keep on recycling the ball phase after phase, they just basically had to wait until a gap opened up in the Barbarian defense (Kingsley Uys especially being good at finding/forcing these gaps).
I thought Micah Fale stood up well in his role as captain, carrying aggressively in attack and working hard in defense. From the Australians, I thought their halfback pairing went really well, good orchestration of the attack, both through kicking and passing.
I don't think there's a whole lot to say about the NZ Schools game. Samoa U18 kept on working but it was just a little too easy for the NZ Schools forwards and backs to make metres. For NZ Schools, they'll want to work on the breakdown. Australia U18 effectively targeted the Barbarian ruck so they'll pose a bigger challenge than Samoa there.
All in all, fun games to watch. I thought the quality of the stream was an improvement on recent years as well.
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It's also hard to know what the best starting XV for the NZ Schools is. Some players were replaced at HT and there were plenty of changes in the 2nd half, including a reshuffle of the backline. Sinkinson (hooker) even come back on replace Saumaki when he went off. This was the game to try out some combinations.
Tocker looked taller than either starting lock, and I'm not sure Falloon starts against Aust. Sinton will probably start at halfback but the NC 9/10 combo works well.
They had multiple cameras for the coverage compared to previous years.
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@Bovidae Yeah, talking about the NZ Schools backline, at a certain point it was very hard to work out who was playing where. Inch and Verster were constantly interchanging at first receiver, but I think Inch moved to fullback when Norrie went off? I'll have to take another look at another time.
I think Australia U18 will have taken a lot out of their game against the Barbarians, so they should be well prepared for the game on Sunday. Like you said, they have a lot of solid athletes and carriers, so if the Australians can shore up their defense, it should be a good contest.
Apparently, the NZ Schools coaches do view someone like Hutchings as a potential openside. But, if Aio Keith isn't injured, I do expect the latter to start at 7 against Australia.
New Waratah Fittler, Makasani included as Australia U18s squad named for New Zealand tour
