U20 Rugby Championship 2025
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What coaching experience do Jarrad Hoeata and Craig Dunlea even have? I understand Alex Robinson is at Canterbury NPC? Seems like an unusual weak coaching group for an NZ u20s team.
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That game was hard to watch. Set piece looks to be a complete lollie scramble. Look under done, as to be expected with ONE warm up game before this.
What our winger was doing shooting up every time, i will never know. If it is under instruction then why does everyone else on the field look confused as well.
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That was an abysmal performance, and serious questions should be asked about the coaching of youth rugby in NZ, because somehow we have turned up at an U20 Level, with Props who can't actually Prop a scrum - I understand how First XV level, but how is this occuring at a level where players potentially a rolling out for an ITM or Super level side if injuries strike?
After watching the recent U20 Tournament, you would also have to ask about the selection policy because players like Saunoa and Kunawave did not stand out, and there appeared to be better outside backs—I mean, Saunoa is clearly a physical specimen, but you scratch your head about what else he offers, and the less said about Kunawave and his defence and decision-making, the better.
This team will have some serious scores run up against it by the likes of England and France at the coming WC tournament—both those sides have forward packs that will take this NZ side to the cleaners—and when you watch the game, it's a real head-scratcher how, at this level, we have a forward pack that seems to lack the basic skill set required for this level.
Over the last couple of years, the one big weakness of the NZ U20 side has been our pack and its lack of core skills—scrummaging/line-out play, etc. This has frequently been shown up by the big Nth Packs. Now, it's pretty apparent from watching NZ vs. Oz games at U18 and U20 Levels over the past couple of years that Oz have now moved forward in terms of their player development.
It's not the players' fault, but there is a far bigger question around what the NZRFU is actually doing regarding core skill development for youth players. We seem to be years behind when you watch a 6 Nations U20 game.
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@Mauss said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
@Bovidae said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
Oudenryn just needed to throw to the front - game over.
Tengblad is the caller, so the onus falls on him to not overcomplicate the call. I do think both hookers were guilty of underthrowing as well. A lot to fix.
Treacy was at the front waiting for the throw in that lineout near halfway. Madness.
The scrum, I don't see how that's going to correct itself this season. Pole and Faleafā did better than I expected but there's going to be refs who are going to penalize them heavily. Don't really think there's anyone to come back who can necessarily make a big difference in that regard either.
Faleafa does have a tendency to collapse on the hit (see the first scrum), and there will be tougher scrums to face at the WC like Georgia and Italy. Hopefully Wallace is over his foot injury and available, and I still would have selected Palmer as one of the LHs. I also note that Tengblad is the LH lock in the scrum. With his size I would have thought he would be packing behind the TH prop.
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@KiwiInLondon Hoeata has been an assistant coach for Taranaki for a while, and involved at the Chiefs (Dev side, U20s).
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@MJonesfan what’s scary is this is your next crop of Super Rugby players .
Agree with most of what you are saying I watched many of the games played at the recent Super Rugby Pacific U20 Rugby tournament played in Taupo , in most cases defence was optional all playing a similar style
Ironically I was at a funeral yesterday had good chat with Adrian Choat , he was in the last NZ team that won the title back in 2017 which ironically still has the most successful number of players that went on to become full Super Rugby professionals and All Blacks
Adrian also mentioned he was off contract with the Blues at the end of the season -
The forward pack again is poor can’t scrum,lineout was all over the place.
The game management was very poor from Simpson,Pledger apart from the tap kick for the first try he was average.
People talk up Simpson but his error rate is massive and his option taking is poor.
Do we have a prop in NZ at this level who can hold a scrum up,
The WC could be embarrassing for us, -
@MJonesfan seems too much focus is, and has always been on the ABs since professionalism.
Sure, the ABs are important to NZ, NZ Rugby and to a lesser extent now, world rugby, but I think we have taken our eye off the ball at the lower levels with the development (schoolboy/club/provincial)
It's something I have mentioned plenty of times, but I go back to when Cron was a world leader in scrumming coaching, he was going around NZ doing clinics in the provinces.
Now I realise this can create it's own issue if everyone does things the same way, but it was identifying an area we needed to work on, and developed, to be world leaders, but we rested on that far too long, kept using the same methods beyond thier use-by date when other teams evolved.
So Razor, NZR along with Super/NPC coaches should be looking at areas of weakness (all round props, 10's controlling games, exits, game smarts) and looking at implementing ways to improve this.
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We always go for the physically imposing players if there is a 50/50 call to make. It can pay off if you get it right but the defence of some of our big boys and especially outside backs leaves alot to be desired.
My personal feelings are this team could be great. They have 90% of the right selections in the squad. The coaching group have come through the system. Fundamentals is whats letting this group down. Tackling, lineouts and scrums in particular. This showed in the warmup game as well to a certain degree.
Give me a rugby player who can play both ways over the speciman or flashy footwork. Im sick of the selections for the razzle player rather than those that can do their roles.
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@taniwharugby—Yip, it's beyond me how we don't have someone like Mike Cron either travelling or getting tight forwards into Palm Nth to work on their skills.
Pretty clear from the 6 Nations the amount of investment going into this level of rugby and reality is that given our mid-tier level of players are heading offshore, more and more we are requiring these young players to step up sooner into ITM and Super level ranks than what they are ready for.
Given that we will always have some of the best open field runners in the world, I'm surprised that the NZRFU is not going heavy into the development of the tight 5, whose underperformance has become very apparent (whilst North invests heavily) and is concerning given these players are who will be in the AB squad in circa 5 odd years etc.
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There are some bare bones stats here
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Very entertaining watch
Ref bottled it at the end. Soon as the Kiwi went to the bin it should have been penalty try, tied game, game over.
World Rugby has an ideal opportunity to tighten officiating each season with the U20s but seem reluctant to do so
Both teams flopping on the ruck making it a mess
Start penalising the shit out of this when these boys are young enough to change habits
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