Chris Smith gets his hands on the trophy at the second attempt
Photo: John Dickson
21 APRIL 2007
By Karen Bond
New Zealand nullified the powerful South African pack with a mouth-watering display of attacking rugby to triumph 31-7 at Ravenhill to reclaim the IRB Under 19 World Championship crown they last won in 2004.
The final began at a frenetic pace with New Zealand clearly fired up after their performance of the Haka and determined to avoid a third successive IRB Under 19 World Championship runners-up medal.
New Zealand’s high intensity level was rewarded with two tries in the opening seven minutes to stun the 2005 champions, the first from Robert Fruean after good work from Zach Guildford enabled the centre to find the gap in the South African defence.
Trent Renata saw his conversion drift wide of the uprights, but the full back made no mistake with his second from in front of the posts minutes later to convert his own try after a flowing backline move with angled runs involving him, Guildford and Fruean.
Horror injury
Their momentum was halted by a sickening injury to centre Ryan Crotty, which held up play for several minutes and silenced the 11,165 crowd. Crotty fell awkwardly in the tackle, his left ankle collapsing under him as he screamed out in pain on the floor.
Crotty departed on a stretcher with a few words from captain Chris Smith and the desire to win the title for their injured teammate seemed a heavy burden at times, although a fantastic break by flanker Peter Saili saw him stopped five metres shot.
Fruean turned from try scorer to villain in the 31st minute when the centre was sin-binned by referee James Jones for a late swinging arm on full back Wilton Pietersen, but he left the field trying to encourage his teammates to remain strong while a man down.
A sublime cross-field kick by Renata bounced perfectly for Kade Poki, the wing’s chip taken into touch by South African fly half Francois Brummer.
Minutes later hooker Ash Dixon came close to scoring, but the television match official Julian Pritchard was unable to determine that the ball had been touched down.
Captain blow
However, New Zealand did not have long to wait for their third try, a perfectly timed cross-field kick from fly half Daniel Kirkpatrick being caught and touched down by the diving Poki for his sixth try of the tournament.
Renata missed the conversion, but 14-man New Zealand still went in leading 17-0 at half time and South Africa needing a dramatic turnaround in fortunes after the break if they were to reclaim the title they won on home soil in 2005.
The loss of their inspirational captain Gerrit van Velze at half time did not help South Africa’s cause, neither did a missed penalty by centre Stefan Watermeyer in the opening minutes of the second half.
Instead it was New Zealand that scored the first points of the second half, a wonderful dummied pass inside to Renata by hooker Dixon fooling the defence and allowing him to charge for the line, before slipping the pass inside to the supporting Renata to score.
Fighting to the finish
The full back converted his own score once more and the dominant Baby Blacks continued to attack at will, running the ball from deep in their own half with great potency and punching holes in the South African defence time and time again.
Their play was rewarded when Jackson Willison, the replacement for the injured Crotty, scythed through a gaping hole in the defence to score New Zealand’s fifth try after the pass from Renata, who converted to leave his side leading 31-0.
South Africa, though, refused to simply fold and finished strongly, Van Velze’s replacement Yaasir Hartzenberg using every ounce of his strength to power over the line after a break by Pietersen. Watermeyer then duly curled his conversion inside the posts.
Much of the final 10 minutes was spent in the New Zealand half with South African forwards battering the defence, but despite wave after wave of pressure, the Baby Blacks refused to allow their try line to be breached for a second time.
QUOTES
New Zealand coach Kieran Crowley: “I thought our defence was outstanding and there were a lot of big hits out there tonight. You have to take your opportunities and we did take a couple at the start, but there were also a few we did not take. I just think the guys kept at it and kept to their game structure fairly well.
“Two early tries was a good start. If you get dominance early, you keep it on the throat and things come. We were probably a little guilty in previous games of taking the foot of the throttle and letting other teams get back into it.
“Tonight we kept the pressure on and it stood us in good stead. Getting the third try when a man down was important, but it was our defence who made that with a turnover. The boys really dug deep in that 10-minute period.
“We are delighted. There is a lot of hard work goes into this and we are probably the lucky ones to be here on stage, there are a lot of managers and trainers back home in New Zealand who have put a lot of work into this.
“The victory certainly did not come easily. South Africa are a big team, and we had a good look at them before. We knew if we could cut out their big runners then we could weaken them.”
New Zealand captain Chris Smith: “It means a lot to be the captain of the World Cup winning side. I was on a losing side last year and know what that felt like, and it was an experience I wanted to forget.
When you pull a Bok jersey over your head you are always proud and even in defeat we will all be keeping our heads high. You learn more from one defeat than 100 victories, I am still proud of the boys and we will stay mates forever.
South Africa captain Gerrit van Velze
“To win tonight, and also so resoundingly, was just fantastic. The boys gave everything tonight and we really played as a team. At the same time we have to give credit to South Africa because that was a hard final. That was a real brutal encounter up front. We said we had to take them on and we did.
“I am not the only leader in there. We have a number of leaders; someone is a captain of something. That was what reflected the scorecard so well. Everyone took responsibility, everyone did their job and it came together.”
New Zealand prop Ben Afeaki: “We went through our patterns well tonight, but we were able to mess them up quite well in the pack. It was a good encounter and I think everyone enjoyed it.
“We did not expect to go out and win because being in a final anything can happen and we just had to make sure we did our bits right, which we did. It was a hard game and that is not reflected in the scoreline.
“Our physio and doctor do a lot of work with us after matches and that is one of the reasons why we won tonight.”
South Africa captain Gerrit van Velze: “It is not fun to be runners-up and when you get into occasions like finals you do not dream of being second. You have to take all the positives out of it, do not let your heart go down and take all something from the experiences you have gained.
“We made it difficult for ourselves to win by conceding two early tries and we had a tough game to come back in. We let ourselves down in the beginning, although we did battle back well.
“We probably played into their strengths at times and in the first half we almost just gave it to them so they could run at us. It was hard to defend and the holes eventually opened.
“When you pull a Bok jersey over your head you are always proud and even in defeat we will all be keeping our heads high. You learn more from one defeat than 100 victories, I am still proud of the boys and we will stay mates forever.”
South Africa coach Eric Sauls: “I still think we were dominant in certain phases, but we played to stereotype and tried to drive, drive, drive all the time. We missed two tackles early on and they were able to score against the run of play. We never gave ourselves an opportunity to play.
“In the second half we came back a little bit. I wanted to play a game where we slowed the ball and try and suck them in and we just lost too many balls, we allowed them to play wide and they migrated to the rucks.
“New Zealand are a brilliant team and if you allow them space and time they will punish you for it. It is difficult to play against a team that has so much talent right across the team. They have running pace, coming hard onto the ball and you have to cover it. If you do not, you will have difficult stopping them and we did tonight.
“The boys can learn from this defeat, and they can still be proud of what they have done.”
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