Junior Boks primed for physical Georgia in U-20 World Championship opener | The Citizen

The Junior Springboks are primed and ready to take on a physical Georgian team in their opening U-20 World Championship match at the Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch on Saturday night (kick-off 7pm).

Coach Bafana Nhleko admitted at the pre-match press conference on Thursday that his side had a good idea of what to expect from their European challengers and that they are prepared for a positive game, while looking to focus on themselves.

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“Georgia have evolved and they have evolved quite well if you look at their most recent games and the way they want to play. The thing that never changes about them is they identify as a set-piece team,” explained Nhleko.

“They take massive pride in scrumming. If you look around Europe, particularly in France you will see a lot of Georgian props. So we are certainly aware that is one area they will target and we have to be ready for that.

“They recently beat England and they had a good game against France. They have two exciting young outside backs, if I am not mistaken, that are part of the senior national world cup squad. So I think they will come in with intent to play positive rugby.

“From our side we haven’t had international games with this particular group. So it’s more a case of making sure that we are able to impose ourselves and impose our plan regardless of what Georgia brings to the party.”

Job at hand

Junior Springbok vice-captain Katlego Letebele claimed the team’s focus was fully on the job at hand and that their goal was to build momentum into the rest of the tournament.

“For us it has been about focusing on our processes and building confidence from the first game. Everyone wants to win the competition, but for us it’s about taking it one step at a time, building confidence from Saturday and that’s how we are looking at it,” said Letebele.

“A lot of us have desires to become Springboks one day. People like Handre Pollard who have played in competitions like this have led the way, which has sort of created a pathway for us because we know this is where they started.

“We do want to get to that journey. But we are focused on the main thing which is this tournament that we are going to play in now.”