Bafana Nhleko says the Junior Springboks are expecting Italy to bring an enterprising style of play on the hunt for a win in the second pool match of the World U20 Championship in Paarl on Thursday. DYLAN JACK reports.
The two teams had contrasting results in the opening round of the tournament over the weekend. While the Junior Boks armwrestled Georgia for a tough win, Italy endured a day to forget as they were reduced to 14 men early on against Argentina and conceded 43 points.
“Passion,” head coach Nhleko said when asked what he expects from the Italians. “They are hurting from last weekend, I am certain of that. The red card didn’t help them at all. I don’t know if the scoreboard minus the red card would have been completely different.
“They have a strong set piece. They actually kept Argentina at bay when it was still 15 on 15 at the set piece. I genuinely thought they played some nice, enterprising rugby in the U20 Six Nations. We expect them to come with that.
“The nature of the competition is that they understand that they have to win this and they also need to chase the points deficit. They are used to the conditions so they will come out firing, try to have a go at us up front and keep the ball alive to put us under pressure. It also depends on the pictures we present them. They can only work on what we showed as areas of concern.
“For us, we have watched Italy and we watched ourselves,” added Nhleko. “There are a couple of things that we want to try, we will tweak here and there, but we won’t be going out of system. We noticed that they do present opportunities in one or two areas and if we can around to that with our forwards and backs, we should be ok.”
Nhleko said the Junior Springboks have had a good opportunity to what went wrong in the second half against Georgia, when the hosts’ 12-point half-time was cut down to just two going into the final quarter of the match.
“We were disappointed in some aspects but the most important thing is, that the players can sort of breathe, knowing what to expect in the next game.
“Probably the biggest thing is that we gave up control of the game at a certain stage and we suffered a bit for that. We failed to exit properly twice and that put us under real pressure. From then on, our set-piece suffered a bit – we conceded four back-to-back penalties – and that piled pressure on us. It also took energy away from us defensively, because I thought in the first half we really defended well, but then we stopped folding and couldn’t get width on defence. Ultimately those are the things that hurt us.
“With that said, to come back with only two points in it, when the game is really going against you and you still find a way, there is a lot to be said for the character of this group. The boys stayed calm and found a way back into it.
Nhleko has named five uncapped players in an overhauled matchday-23 to face Italy, with vice-captain and outside centre Katlego Letebele the only back retaining his starting place.
“It was always part of the plan. I sat a month ago, before we even selected the final squad, and showed the players the plan we had. We were always going to go against Georgia and Italy with different teams and different plans. I have explained the thought process. The turnaround time is short in the tournament.
“We are playing at home and even though that didn’t have a massive bearing, the last thing you want is for someone to play in a home tournament and not get one minute on the field. The biggest thing for me is the trust factor. If you want to go anywhere in the tournament, you need to show trust in the squad and make sure everyone gets game time.
“These guys are still in a development phase and we have a responsibility to ensure these guys can grow to become better players, who can go on to play URC. As much as we want to win the tournament, and that is our aim, we can’t go away from the fact that we need to give these guys exposure and game time.”
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