Rd 1 U20s World Cup - Aust v SA Sunday, 29 June @ Stadio San Michele, Calvisano, 11.30pm AEST

[Dctarget]

That's grim. You got the feeling our earlier victory over them was a bit fortuitous but not 70 point loss fortuitous.

 

[Pass it to Dunning!]

Is it too late to send this entire team home and bring out a new squad?

 

[Brumby Runner]

Some changes needed in the backline in particular. Martens the better No 9. Fowler is the size of an U12s and plays like it. Need more penetration in the centres; a bigger bodied winger with some pace to complement Watters. Harvey should be in the U20s with Fowler.

Both starting forwards and bench are competitive although a couple of monster locks wouldn't go astray. I was surprised that Morrison was replaced early. He was the only ball running forward able to make incisions into the defence.

Not sure if our undersized players are typical of what's available in this country or a result of poor, biassed selection by the coach. Certainly, there is plenty of evidence in the skills on show to suggest we would benefit from some improved coaching.

 

[Dan54]

Certainly looked boys against men sizewise didn't it BR. The Aussie boys just looked overwhelmed at times. Bok U20s had loosies at lock for last 15 minutes, and still looked as big as Aus pack. As you say BR not sure if that's what's available or just wrong selections. I doubt whether te NZ boys will hanle the Boks much better.

 

[farrellybros]

Looking at this squad (and others) it feels like we consistently take a "tournament-based" approach to selections where we value utility ahead of expertise and specialism from 4-15. Injuries happen and it's great to have cover for them but at the end of the day the "tournament" is just a couple of games and typically unless you win all your games you'll find it hard to progress to the latter stages.

Might have just been the scoreline but the demoralising effect it had on the blokes but you would have thought hot and dry conditions were to our advantage (given we hoped for such pre-tournament and our shocking record in the wet historically) more that SAF but we looked significantly under done fitness wise.

 

[PaarlBok]

Credit to Kevin Foote. He did his homework well. England is going to be a challenge on friday.

 

[dribble]

Unfortunately you have to wonder if it is this approach of who has a contract vs who is in form. there are players who are weeks back from injury selected While talented kids with no ‘super rugby’ contracts carving it up in club grade

 

[Hawko]

Yes, but this team beat SA just a few months ago and the players were selected from games between state squads. I thought they looked quite good in the preparatory tournament against both NZ and SA. So, how come the 70 point turnaround? Something definitely smells fishy to me, logically this does not make sense. Did SA deliberately sandbag the southern hemisphere tournament? Did we lose a whole team of stars somewhere? I guess we find out on Friday when we see how England goes against SA.

 

[Tomthumb]

Or it was just really bad preparation from Whittaker and Co.

 

[Strewthcobber]

We are talking about teenagers here Hawko.

SA scored a a few tries off a couple of missed tackles down the blind-side, and the Aussie lads had to chase the game, made more errors, dropped their bundle and maybe some of them gave up for a while.

It's going to happen sometimes with young players. I don't think there needs to be any sort of conspiracy.

 

[Tomthumb]

70 point turnarounds don't 'just happen' to be fair. It's pretty diabolical, even at this level