WR U20 Championship 2025
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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.
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@taniwharugby No, we have a good side. Not an over-achievement by any means.
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@OomPB said in WR U20 Championship 2025:
Why do NZ dont wear their black jerseys against France?
Because World Rugby, and the billions of colour blind viewers.
Jerseys have to be dark and light.
Wouldn't surprise if they made one of us wear white in the final. Coz green looks black in b&w...
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@akan004 said in WR U20 Championship 2025:
Not winning the final lineout before HT and conceding the try on HT could prove to be costly for NZ.
That was such a dumb decision by Letiu. Throw to the front and kick the ball out.
It's hard to know what to make of this performance. Great that NZ won and they defended their goal line well but France made a lot of mistakes (handling errors, forward passes etc). Some of that was down to NZ defensive pressure.
The Wiseman YC was very soft. I've no idea why Pledger was missing from a few rucks as he was way out of frame.
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@Mauss said in WR U20 Championship 2025:
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.
Would be tough to start at hooker then move to the loosies. Subbing straight into the loosies, like in this game, seems more likely to work
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The French really fluffed their lines. They will be kicking themselves.
The best part for me was seeing the way the NZers aligned themselves to beat the French defence. It looked so natural to them. Perhaps we are finally seeing a generation of kids coming through with the instincts to beat modern defences.
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@Crazy-Horse said in WR U20 Championship 2025:
The French really fluffed their lines. They will be kicking themselves.
The best part for me was seeing the way the NZers aligned themselves to beat the French defence. It looked so natural to them. Perhaps we are finally seeing a generation of kids coming through with the instincts to beat modern defences.
It was great to see the shoe being on the other foot, for once, with the French being wasteful with possession and momentum. The amount of games the NZ U20s have lost in recent years because of overplaying instead of actually adapting their gameplan to the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses has been considerable (and frustrating).
The turnovers stats from the 2024 and ’25 semi-finals are quite indicative in this sense: a turnover balance of -23 (26 lost, 3 won) for the NZ U20s turned into one of -6 (11 lost, 5 won). The French U20s, on the other hand, went from -2 in 2024 (10 lost, 8 won) to -20 in 2025 (23 lost, 3 won). It’s basically a complete reversal of last year’s result, with the scores mostly staying closer, I believe, due to the NZ U20 cards (the Wiseman one being very soft, as already mentioned above).
As far as the attack is concerned, credit has to really go to the coaching, I think, because none of these players will have had a lot of experience with either these attack shapes (a combination of double stacked pods out the back, with elements of the currently popular flat pod-structures) or the kind of line-speed being brought by teams like France and South Africa U20s.
That being said, the players have shown an incredible skillset in playing close and quick to the line, choosing the right pass in a multi-option attack, and organizing strikes on the fly with enough support. Players like Cole, Simpson, Solomon and Wiseman have shown, like you said, a very natural sort of instinct for playing flat. I love how quickly a player like Will Cole shifts the ball when the attack is on and the space is available. It’s been really fun to watch.
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Yeah the way we put it through the hands and used angles was great to watch.
Baby Boks play a different defensive pattern than the French so I’m interested in how we will unlock our attack against them.
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Just watched the full game.
Really enjoyed that. The skills of the backs was great to see and along with the desperation in defence the judicious use of the bench was noticeable - in addition to the dual hooker tactic, the more mobile forwards starting in the heat with the power players coming on late to close it out.
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