New Zealand will face South Africa in the Division A final at the IRB Under 19 World Championship after the Baby Blacks overcame Wales 36-12 in their semi final at Ravenhill on Tuesday 17 April.
The score line was virtually the same as when the two sides met at the same venue in the opening round of pool matches, New Zealand winning 37-14 to get their campaign to reclaim the title after two final losses off to the perfect start.
New Zealand, though, did not have this semi final all their own way with Wales producing a strong second half display to the delight of their contingent in the crowd. Ultimately though it was New Zealand’s three first half tries that ended hopes of a northern hemisphere finalist.
Drafted in to replace the injured Israel Dagg at full back, Trent Renata kicked a penalty in the first minute to open the scoring for New Zealand. Six minutes later centre Jackson Willison carved open the Welsh defence to score an impressive individual try.
Cancelling out
Renata added the conversion and then cancelled out a penalty from Wales wing Leigh Halfpenny with one of his own to give New Zealand a 13-3 lead after only 14 minutes. This quickly became 18-3 when Renata rounded off a great piece of back play to score in the corner.
Wing Zach Guildford scored New Zealand’s third try of the half after Kade Poki set off on one of his exciting runs before finding centre Robert Fruean, who had scored a hat trick of tries against Wales in the pool game.
Fruean threw a long pass to Guildford, who wasn’t going to be denied his try from 22 metres out. Wales were forced to make a number of changes, including taking off replacement David Langdon after only five minutes on the field when he suffered a fractured cheekbone.
The lengthy stoppage while Langdon was treated by medics allowed his Welsh teammates to regroup and they duly reduced the deficit to 23-9 at half time after two further penalties from the boot of Halfpenny, who went into this match as the leading point scorer in Division A.
Spirited performance
Halfpenny kicked his fourth penalty of the match shortly after the break to bring Wales back to 23-12 and keep alive their hopes of a revival against a New Zealand who were starting to allow a few errors to creep into their game.