2012 IRB Junior World Championship

[TRF_stormer2010]

Congrats SA, just don't forget the man shaming we dished out to you children in the first round.

LOL, yeah, when Ireland dominated us up front I thought that was it for the tournament and we had a bit of a mountain to climb after that. Tough pool. I'll be glad that we won't be in the same pool next year.

Did Abrie Griesel start a match after Ireland?
Seems like SA back play was much better with van der Watt and Pollard as the halfback pairing.

Looking forward to van Dyk and Dell breaking into our squad, Jannie won't be around forever.

@BG8, I hope that is a joke!

Griesel and Jantjies were poor this tournament TBH. We are very lucky that Theron changed up early on and that vd Watt and Pollard stayed injury free.

As for the game I thought it was immense that we had a 'capacity' (pity they didn't open all the seats) crowd and the players didn't dissapoint. Also glad that we won at home. As a proud rugby nation it would really have irked to not win at home and how fitting that we had to go through the 2 old and respected enemies England and NZ to go all the way. I know it wasn't the best u20 side NZ has had yet (arguably the least competitive) as these tournaments but they didn't give up and stayed in touch on the scoreboard despite being dominated up front.
I think it's good for rugby as a competition- even if the u20 isn't the flagship- that someone other than NZ took the honors for a change and we saw some good performances from Wales, Ireland and Argentina who showed that they could mix it up with the best (with England, Aus and France being usual powerhouses not really featuring at the end and Ire/Wal's wins over SA/NZ in the pool stages).

It was a great tournament and I think can only go from strength to strength.