The two deserving sides, France and Ireland, will compete for the World Rugby under-20 Championship trophy on Friday.

Three of the four teams that participated in the under-20 Championship semi-finals were from the northern hemisphere.

England, France and Ireland have a cumulative one loss between them since the start of the tournament on 24 June — and that was when France beat England 52-31 in their semi-final clash.

The only southern hemisphere side to make the semi-final stage was hosts South Africa — who were defeated 31-12 by Ireland on Sunday. 

The Junior Boks scraped through to the play-offs despite being tied on points, and having an inferior points difference, with Georgia — another northern hemisphere side. South Africa progressed due to having won their head-to-head match.

Southern hemisphere sides have claimed eight of the nine senior men’s Rugby World Cups that have been played. While the under-20 Championship is much closer with seven of the 12 editions played since 2008, claimed by the southern hemisphere (six by New Zealand and one by South Africa) and five by the northern hemisphere (three by England and two by France).

The northern hemisphere’s comparative success at junior level is largely due to their investment in the age-group system. An annual under-20 Six Nations competition has been in place since 2008 (there was an under-21 edition for four years before that) where players are tested against their age-mates prior to the under-20 Championship.

In comparison, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina often play their first competitive under-20 matches when the under-20 Championship rolls around annually.

The Junior Springboks played warm-up matches against club sides, Maties, Hamiltons and False Bay in contrast.

France players celebrate after winning the match during the World Rugby U20 Championship 2023 semi-final match between France and England at Athlone Stadium on 9 July, 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo: Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images/World Rugby)

Inexperience

The Junior Boks dominated the first half of their semi-final against Ireland in every aspect except the scoreboard — going into halftime trailing 7-0.

When Ireland gained momentum in the second half, they took all of their opportunities, scoring 24 unanswered points between the 50th minute and the 74th minute.

“[Ireland] were good value for their win,” SA under-20 coach Bafana Nhleko said after the semi-final loss.

“We need to be fair to them. But one of the things that we’ve constantly been talking about and it’s quite clear to see, we’re not making excuses, is certain teams are just better at playing under pressure situations because they’re exposed to those pressure situations.

“You take the first half, you take some of the games we’ve played when we’ve really been on top and we’ve done well, but there’s a certain time in any game where the pressure is on and it’s how you handle that.”

Ireland under-20 are Six Nations Grand Slam winners this year and came into the under-20 Championship high on confidence.

“I spoke to Ireland’s coach (Richie Murphy), and 26 of the 30 that are here played in the Six Nations Grand Slam winning team,” Nhleko added.

“Some of the guys that are here were playing last year in the summer series, I think about half of their group.

“So, you can just imagine that they’ve always had 10, 12 maybe international matches together, so that does help them in certain situations.

“But I think if we were better on the day, we could have certainly won as well.”

The Junior Springboks spent the majority of the first half an hour of the clash in Ireland’s 22m but poor execution close to the whitewash let them down on a number of occasions.

While when Ireland had the ascendancy, South Africa failed to deal with pressure.

“The biggest difficulty is once you’re dealing with that pressure where teams are kicking onto you, then you need to exit,” Nhleko said.

“When your set pieces are under pressure, how do you deal with that? And we just haven’t had that type of preparation.

“But we’re not looking for excuses as far as international matches go.”

Imad Khan of South Africa scores a try during the World Rugby U20 Championship 2023 semi-final match against Ireland at Athlone Stadium. South Africa lost 31-12. (Photo: Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images/World Rugby)

Early development

Ireland under-20 coach Murphy acknowledged the preparation the under-20 Six Nations provided for his players headed into the Championship.

“These guys are obviously young men, most of them coming out either one year or two years out of school,” he said. “The Six Nations gives us an opportunity to play a really high-level competition and I think competition is what really helps these guys develop because they learn then and over the course of the season these guys have played five Six Nations and now four matches in [the under-20 Championship].

“[That’s] 10 top-class matches with a couple of warm-up matches thrown in gives you a great opportunity to develop that group as a team and two as individuals.

“We come from a country with four different professional teams so to try and bond those guys together is actually quite easy but it’s a really good part of what we do in Irish Rugby and the RFU itself has given us great support in relation to funding and backing to allow us to do what we’ve done.”

While Ireland were able to fix any errors in the build-up to the under-20 Championship, the Junior Boks had to “learn on the job”.

“[A struggling factor was] consistency probably, in terms of our technical detail, and probably learning on the job,” Nhleko said.

“I think as far as the players are concerned, we’ve tried throughout the tournament to remedy, to get to the point where we can fix certain things and in some parts we were really good and other parts just didn’t happen for us.

“We’d love [more international matches] but it’s obviously above my pay grade. And it’s not for lack of wanting from our side.” DM