U20 Rugby Championship 2025
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@Crazy-Horse said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
@Mauss last night was the first time I have seen Coles play and agree with much of what you wrote about him, but I do have one reservation. He seems to be yet another NZ 10 with a pop gun punt. I felt his lack of distance when clearing contributed to NZ getting stuck around their own 22/10 metre line following receiving a kick off. Where have we seen that problem before?
That's a fair point. I feel like his tactical kicking is quite good (he was often able to find space in the SA back field) but his line kicking especially tends to come up too short. It's a big advantage to Rico Simpson's game, he gets way more distance.
But looking at Cole's profile in general, he probably needs to add some muscle to his frame. That should help at least a little.
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Hell of a siege mentality from the 13 left on the park
Great game of rugby to watch
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Australia worthy winners, but field a weak scrum at your peril. The Argies kept it close on the back of a solid set piece.
First Argie YC should have been at least a review if not straight red.
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@Crazy-Horse 100%. Definite mitigation as the other lads got to him first and made him fall forward a little bit. Tackler could have got lower but in that situation you’re not sure if the tackle is coming or where exactly it is so late reaction. A case to justify the bunker review.
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@Bovidae said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
Looking ahead to the WC squad, I see that Aisake Vakasiuola is back playing club rugby. Adding him to the forward pack gives you more bulk at lock and another ball-carrier.
Great. Treacy and Tengblad are very skinny locks.
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@Mamuka said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
Hello, will players from the 7s team join the u20 squad?
The four players listed as being unavailable for this tournament were Oli Mathis, Joey Taumateine, Xavier Tito-Harris and Frank Vaenuku. Vaenuku was a starter last year so I expect him to be one of the wingers again. Tito-Harris was also in the 2024 squad. IIRC Taumateine has a shoulder injury so probably won't be fit. Mathis would be my starting no.7. I'm not sure how serious his injury is.
If Logan Wallace and Jayden Sa are also available that would be four additions to the starting forward pack for me.
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On the game against South Africa, I just wanted to quickly highlight some other facets of the NZ U20 attacking shape and how they dealt with the Junior Bok rush defence (I still want to look at the NZ defensive pattern throughout the three games as well but that’s probably going to take a while). I felt like Stanley Solomon’s try in the 52nd minute showcased some interesting aspects of this shape.
The set-up
The Baby Blacks started their attack from kick return, Will Cole taking the ball into contact around the halfway line. The first thing to notice is how comfortable the NZ U20s are keeping the ball in hand and building the phases in the middle of the field, not looking to kick but instead searching to play towards the space. The goal is not so much to break on the outside – the Bok defence is set up cohesively – but to keep the defenders moving wide to wide. The NZ attackers are also wary of moving the ball into space to players lacking support. Wiseman has McLeod in space on the wing but he’s isolated and in danger of being turned over.
The space is a lie: Wiseman could play it wide but there’s no support in black available to protect the ballInstead, Wiseman stays connected to his support and takes the contact. What the Baby Blacks are looking for are disconnected defenders, fractures in the line which are due to appear when defenders are starting to tire out. Eventually, the gap appears when Norton and Bester drift too far apart, Norton looking to make the big hit on Pole and Bester too focused on the threat of Wiseman in midfield.
Faleafā’s break allows the NZ U20s to move up field and start organizing an attacking strike.
The end goal of the set-up is to ultimately split the Junior Bok defence into two through attacking from a midfield ruck. This would give the NZ U20 attack two wide areas of the field to target, something which is made further possible by the abundance of playmakers on the field. The defensive scanners in the backfield can’t really exclude either option, so they’re forced to hold off rather than intervene in a decisive manner.
In the movement following Faleafā’s break, two attacking patterns typical for dealing with a rush defence coalesce into one. One is the so-called 21 attack play (two phases in the same way, then one phase back in the other direction) and the other is attacking from a midfield ruck. I’ve already mentioned the advantage of the midfield ruck against the rush defence, as it splits the defensive line, leaving fewer defenders available to fulfil the different roles within a rush pattern. On the other hand, the 21 attack play has as the goal to move defenders away from the space where you want to attack.
In the two phases immediately after the break, the attack moves to the open in both instances, first Tengblad carrying into contact with the first pod, before Bason takes the second carry with the second pod.
Setting up for the 21 attack play
The set-up is now complete: the NZ attack has gone two phases into the openside (drawing defenders away) while setting up a midfield ruck (split defence).
Now Sinton will move into the strike, going back to the blindThe strike
In the meantime, the backline has realigned to attack the blindside, with Faleafā and Pole setting up a blockers play while Cole, Simpson and Roberts are stacked behind each other, executing a double loop behind the attacking pod.I’ve slowed the movement down so as to more clearly show the stacked formation of Cole, Simpson and Roberts
The final part of the strike is simply great skill execution: Simpson completing the overlap and finding Wiseman, Wiseman stepping inside before passing back outside to Solomon, Solomon stepping an overcommitted Bester, all of it is just part of what was consistently excellent decision-making on attack throughout most of the game.
Solomon try
Throughout the game, the NZ U20s were again able to showcase a very patient attacking game plan: rather than moving into the illusory space on the edge too quickly, where they would be at risk of turning the ball over and losing attacking momentum, the Baby Blacks took a measured approach. They used the middle of the field to gradually fracture the Junior Bok defence, using width to stretch the Bok defensive connection while attacking the seams which were gradually becoming more brittle with each new carry-and-clean.
The rush defence, at its best, can be experienced as being caught in a current: no matter how much you struggle to get back to surface, fresh waves coming through will keep pulling you down. That’s what it can feel like when you get on the back foot against the rush: at one moment, you’re in space. Next thing you know, however, you’re being engulfed by defensive wave after defensive wave, until it feels like you can’t possibly get on top of this thing.
What the NZ U20s have shown with their attack, is that you need to take a patient and measured approach to navigate the waters. You need a plan. You need control (breakdown), you need balance (support), and, most importantly, you need to take it one wave at a time. Once you’re able to do that, you’ll be riding those waves like it’s the most natural thing in the world in no time.
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@Bovidae said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
Parsons talks about the NZ U20 attack and the use of the backs behind the forward pods on this weeks ARP (at 32:29).
I like Hall's point about how it was more a case of the attack being good rather than the defence being bad, which is what you often hear when there's a lot of points scored in a game.
Both attacks, the NZ U20s and SA U20s, were just really clever at times, and, as a defence, there's not necessarily a whole lot that you can do.
It's also good to see that there's some continuity in attacking philosophy for the NZ U20s, with the stacked attack from last year being used again, despite Brad Cooper's departure. With so many ball players in the back line, I feel like it's even gone up a level.
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@Mauss yep, a good attack can manipulate the defence and make 1 man over/under commit to a tackle or attacker, making him look foolish and then everyone says they only scored cos he was shit, ignoring the pattern that forced him into a poor position or making a decision that sees the miss
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@cgrant said in U20 Rugby Championship 2025:
Who among this squad will play in this year's NPC ? Not a lot IMO.
I suppose it depends on what you define as a lot. My personal prediction, for players to receive some game time from the current U20 TRC squad, would be: Letiu, Oudenryn, Pole, Tengblad, Fale, Woodley, Bason, Pledger, Sinton, Cole, Simpson, Roberts, Kunawave, Saunoa, and Solomon.
So around 15 players, with 7 of those having already had their debut in the NPC. That’s not counting players to come in for the U20 World Cup, who’ll definitely play in the NPC, like Mathis, Sa and Vaenuku.
From last year’s squad – both TRC and World Cup, 36 players – around 21 players received minutes in the NPC. So I’d reckon this group will end up with something similar.
Edited for removing some incorrect passages. The NZ U20 Wikipedia lists several wrong provinces for the players, so I made some wrong assumptions about playing opportunities. But I'll mostly stick with my predictions.
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Previously, I have mainly focused on the NZ U20 attack, how it was a mixed bag against the Junior Wallabies before really coming into its own against the Pumitas and the Junior Boks. Here, I’d like to take a look at the Baby Blacks’ defence across the U20 TRC, mainly their defensive shape, what they’re trying to do and, finally, what its main issues were throughout the tournament. And when you’ve conceded an average of 31.6 points across three games, it’s probably fair to say that there were more than a few. It’s also become way longer than I expected so I’m going to split it into two parts, first looking at the shape and how the defence is supposed to look before looking more closely at all the different ways it didn’t reach its desired heights.
Part 1: The shape
So what is the defensive set-up of the NZ U20s? When looking at their shape in general phase play, it’s clear that they defend very narrow. A view as seen here, from their game against the Pumitas, can be considered as representative of their typical positioning:
The Pumitas’ ruck is on the side line and the NZ U20 defensive line covers half of the width of the pitch. Behind them, there are three defensive sweepers: the 9 (Sinton) who covers the space immediately behind the defensive line, the openside winger (Lewai) and the 15 (Solomon). The role of the defensive sweepers is to (1) cover the backfield, (2) lead the scramble defence, and (3) come up when the opposition backline moves into their space.
So why do the Baby Blacks defend so narrow? This is closely related to one of the two main principles of what I believe their defensive philosophy is, which is dominance of opposition in the collision. The NZ U20s want to smother the opposition attack, through defensive pressure, double tackles and breakdown disruption. They want, in other words, to win the physical battle in the close quarters. A narrow defence helps with this, as it concentrates your strongest defenders within a smaller space, making it easier to defend in groups and swarm multiple defenders into the contact. While this leaves a lot of space out wide, the NZ U20 defence tries to combat this by having multiple, mobile scramble defenders but also and more importantly, by employing defensive shooters, either (1) using the third or fourth defender off the ruck to rush the opposition first or second receiver or (2) using the openside winger to shoot up into the opposition backline, looking to disrupt passing lanes or to take the intercept.
With this system of defensive shooters, in the first instance, the idea is to target the first or second receiver’s outside shoulder, forcing the latter to either take the contact, halting the attacking momentum, or to force them back to the inside, where the NZ U20s have numbers and are trying to exert dominance. An example of this is Tengblad rushing up, in the game against the Junior Wallabies, where he targets Doyle, not so much to make the tackle necessarily, but rather to force the attack into spaces where the defence wants them:
Tengblad rushes up, not so much towards the ball carrier but towards his passing lane to the open side
Another good example can be found in the end stages of the game against the Junior Boks – where the NZ U20s were reduced to 13 so defending in the right areas becomes even more paramount – where Fale rushes up on Hlekani’s outside shoulder, forcing him to come back inside where he’s swallowed up by multiple NZ U20 defenders.
Fale looking to stop the wide attack before it gets going
In this first instance, in other words, the defensive shooter is used as a way of guiding the opposition attack back inside and removing the possibility of a wide attack.
In the second instance, someone like Kunawave is given the responsibility of ‘spooking’ backline movements, entering into the opposition attacking space and hoping that they panic. In the game against the Junior Boks, Kunawave successfully did this, Moyo seeing the space out wide and going for the long pass, only for Kunawave to intercept the ball, the turnover eventually resulting in a try to Harlyn Saunoa on the other side of the pitch.
In order to further show how this defensive shape is supposed to work in general play, we can look at a specific example of a positive defensive set, from the game against the Pumitas.
From an Argentina lineout, the NZ U20 defensive line pushes up, with Roberts making the spot tackle behind the gain-line. When the Argentinean player gets the offload away and moves towards the side line, the aggression of the Baby Black defence increases. Harvey and Woodley fly into the breakdown, looking for the counter-ruck, while Cole enters the breakdown when a brief turnover opportunity arises. In the next phase, Woodley and Fale execute the double tackle, with Fale wrapping up man and ball in the upperbody tackle, before ripping the ball away. NZ possession.
This is what the NZ U20s are looking for: physical dominance in contact, breakdown disruption and swarming the opposition. In their next defensive set against the Pumitas, the Baby Blacks would further up their aggression in their midfield defence and gain even better results.
Harvey makes a great spot tackle, with Roberts and Maisiri both following up well in order to increase the pressure on the attack
Harvey, Roberts and Maisiri are all in sync with what they’re trying to do and it leads to a turnover try. But this immediately brings us to the second pillar of this defensive philosophy, which is communication and connection. Whenever you leave a lot of space out wide in favour of a defensively aggressive system, it forces your players to be in constant communication: who goes into the breakdown? Who goes high and who goes low when making the double tackle? Who guards the space I’ve left when I’m making the defensive read? Who covers the backfield when I push up into the defensive line as a sweeper? All of these questions need to be answered constantly, all the while when you’re making tackles and moving bodies.
It is in this breakdown of communication and defensive connection where most of the issues still reside within the NZ U20 defence. This I’ll further explore in the second part of this short series on the Baby Blacks’ defence.
