GAVIN RICH: SA’s rich reservoir of talent underlined by Junior Boks’ emphatic win over New Zealand

The Springboks won all of the games played in the initial stage of the season comfortably, but they were always going to against inferior opposition and their mistakes can be ascribed to the huge amount of experimentation carried out in selection.

So the real test will arrive when Australia, who showed glimpses of promise late in their first Test defeat to the British & Irish Lions, arrive for the opening salvo of the Rugby Championship in mid-August.

What is not debatable though is the rich reservoir of talent this country has at its disposal and that was underlined by the Junior Springboks’ emphatic win in the World Under-20 Championship final against New Zealand.

An eight-point margin didn’t tell the full story of the win that broke a 13-year drought for the national U20 team. They were comprehensively better than the Junior All Blacks, as they were against every other team they played. People like calling them the Baby Boks but there was definitely nothing babyish about the team so ably led by Riley Norton.

What was so impressive was the way they combined the traditional strengths of the SA game, notably frightening physicality and forward power with the new attacking dynamic that the senior Boks started to introduce even before Tony Brown arrived as their attack coach.

The shift for the Boks effectively started when they started to run the ball back in France at Marseille in November 2022 and was given more legs when Manie Libbok was introduced for the second half of the following week’s game against Italy.

While it was Handré Pollard who showed his steely nerve by kicking the clutch kicks that won the World Cup semifinal against the French just under a year later, the Boks would not have been in the game had Libbok not been there to create some tries against the run of play in the first half.

After they scored 73 points against Australia, coach Kevin Foote spoke about what an inspiration the Boks had been to his team, and you could see it.

Since Brown arrived the Boks have accelerated the introduction of a mix of broadsword and rapier and it is catchy. During the U20 global tournament the Junior Boks looked like they were perfecting what their seniors have been building towards. After they scored 73 points against Australia, coach Kevin Foote spoke about what an inspiration the Boks had been to his team, and you could see it.

The deadly counterattack and the pace onto the ball and off the mark of the backline coupled with first phase dominance and the strong driving we saw in the final ensured that the eight-point margin in the decider was the closest any opponent came.

Which was a far cry from what happened in 2024, when they finished seventh, or even in the U20 Rugby Championship, when they lost to New Zealand and Australia. That they got it right after what Foote said was an initial testing period, where he did a lot of experimentation, in the championship is a testament to the coaching of himself and Johan Ackermann.

And it probably isn’t a coincidence that the introduction of a relatively heavyweight coaching team has led to the under-20 team finally delivering the performance the young talent in this country demands. Was the win down to the group that played in Italy being a special cycle of players, or was it because for once they had the right coaching group? It is probably a bit of both.

When the Junior Boks last won back in 2012 they had the experienced coaching duo of Dawie Theron and Brendan Venter at the helm. Then, as now, their bosses made it clear they were employed to win the tournament, but in the years in between the attitude has appeared to be that the U20 side is an opportunity to blood young coaches.

That should not be the case as it is not fair on the players who are at an age where they probably need coaching guidance more than the experienced seniors do. The advantage of having experience in the coaching group was writ large in Italy.