WR U20 Championship 2025

[OomPB]

Why do NZ dont wear their black jerseys against France?

[akan004]

NZ leading at HT but France look to be the better side. They have been getting scrum dominance and their pack are starting to get on top. Look to be handling the heat a bit better than the NZ team as well. Not winning the final lineout before HT and conceding the try on HT could prove to be costly for NZ. Advantage France imo.

[sparky]

24-19 to NZ at the half. Anyone's game.

[Victor Meldrew]

Baby Blacks could give a lesson in game management and handling pressure to their senior counterparts.

[stodders]

Still down to 13 players?

[Victor Meldrew]

2 men down and the Baby Blacks score under the posts.

34-26 with 12 minutes to go

[Victor Meldrew]

France give a penalty 10m from the NZ tryline. Baby Blacks winning the vital moments.

[akan004]

Why replace Pledger with Tamaiti who is such a downgrade?

[Grooter]

This reserve flanker Oudenryn has been very good

[Kiwidom]

@Grooter He's better than the captain Letiu in my opinion

[DaGrubster]

They hung in there for the 2nd half. I thought they were done at one point but what a performance!!

Well done boys!!

[sparky]

Baby Blacks win 34-26 and advance to the final!!!!!

[Kiwidom]

Great effort to make the final after struggling in that opening game against Italy. We missed 28 tackles on the first half today also

[cgrant]

Kudos to the ABs U20. Their first two games were painful to watch. They have grown into a very good team now.

[cgrant]

After a very average performance against Italy, Dylan Pledger gave a masterful display today. Mosese Bason was impressive, so were Vakasiula and Oudenryn (in an unusual position for him) when they came in. Fale's power in the tight was a big plus. The tight five were dominated by their French counterparts but never gave up.

[akan004]

SA look awesome. It will take a monumental effort to beat them in the final.

[sparky]

@akan004 said in WR U20 Championship 2025:

SA look awesome. It will take a monumental effort to beat them in the final.

Not the Big Bad Baby Boks!

[Daffy Jaffy]

[Mauss]

Well done to the NZ U20s and the coaching staff as well, I thought the team looked composed and well prepared. Some really nice set-piece strikes as well.

I thought the Oudenryn-substitution was genius, personally. Letiu has a big engine on him so why take him off? And Oudenryn is excellent around the breakdown and abrasive in contact, so his skillset transfers well to that of a flanker.

Going slightly on a tangent here, but with the ABs bench problems, it might be interesting to do something similar to the NZ U20s and occasionally keep Taylor on the field and shift him to the loose forwards, with Taukei’aho moving to hooker. But this is probably the wrong thread to start that sort of discussion.

But it’s great that the NZ U20s are bringing some innovation, both on attack and around the use of bench forwards. That’s been, for me at least, the most pleasing thing to see with this year's U20 campaign, some creative thinking coming through.

[taniwharugby]

having only watched highlights and following this thread, is the beating of France an over-achievement, or is this just a side that has taken time to gel and building toward the final?

Also seems YCs still an issue for most NZ sides.