Baby Boks to play for 'lost pride'
REACTION: It’s all or nothing for the ‘hurting’ South African Under-20 team, as they look to bounce back in the seventh-place play-off on Friday.
The Baby Boks went down by 24-34 to Los Pumitas in Cape Town on Sunday afternoon, after trailing 10-24 at half-time.
However, they felt they gave a much better account of their previous performance against Argentina 10 days ago.
There were some great attacking displays from the home team in dryer conditions, helping their cause but they were dominated in the line-out which proved to be the difference in the contest.
Much like their previous clash, Argentina started stronger of the two sides – taking a 14-point lead into the break.
The SA U20 team had an improved second half, with centre Jurenzo Julius having a strong performance, dotting down twice in the process.
Junior Boks coach Bafana Nhleko lamented his side’s trait of dropping the intensity at important moments of the match which spoiled several good opportunities.
“There were lots of pressure releases today [Sunday],” said Nhleko.
“We would play in moments and get good momentum, then we release the pressure with an error or poor decision making and then we would find ourselves on the backfoot again.
“We started well in the lineouts, and when they began to tire, we fell off with our detail to keep the pressure on them.
“Those are the opportunities we lost, and those moments hurt us. The most disappointing thing was around the defence, which is usually our strong point.”
Nhleko had a blunt assessment of the mood in the camp.
“We’re down in terms of how we feel because the result wasn’t what we had hoped for,” the coach said.
“The reality is that we must get up and go again because we have a game again on Friday.”
Nhleko shared his thoughts on finishing the tournament.
“We know people are hurting, and the team hurt as much.
“The performance was good in parts but not good enough for the full 80 minutes, but we have one more to go, and we must bounce back and hopefully finish on a better note. Now we must play for some pride.”
