South African Under-20 coach Dawie Theron expressed his satisfaction on the performance of his national training squad in their friendly match against UWC in Stellenbosch on Friday.
The SA U20’s won the match 65-7 after a half-time lead of 31-0.
The young guns scored eleven tries and many of them came of well-worked structured play, something Theron was looking for this early in their campaign. This was the squad’s first match of their 2013 campaign.
The team will defend their IRB Junior World Championship title (won in Cape Town last year) in June in France.
“We had a couple of objectives from this. We have been together five days now, so we wanted to put out early markers of excellence. I am happy that we could do that. Our discipline was good and we kept to the structures we wanted. We defended well, created a lot of chances and finished them off.”
Theron gave most of his squad of 35 a run and with matches against Maties and UCT to follow next week, the coach will see all the players in camp in a match situation.
“I am pretty happy on where we are at this stage of our season, but the reality is that a lot of hard work still lies ahead,” Theron said.
SA Under-20’s point scorers:
Tries: Luther Obi, Jacques du Plessis (2), Jan Serfontein (2), Ruan Steenkamp, Dries Swanepoel, Tyler Fisher, Eugene Le Maitre, JP Lewis (2). Conversions: Handrè Pollard (3), Robert du Preez, Tim Swiel.