South Africa ended the dominance of New Zealand in the IRB Junior World Championship with a thrilling 22-16 final triumph at Newlands on Friday.
A capacity 33,210 crowd saw the Baby Boks overcome a 10-9 halftime deficit against the Baby Blacks with scrumhalf Vian van der Watt and inside center Jan Serfontein crossing for second-half tries.
The rest of the South Africa points came from flyhalf Handre Pollard, who succeeded with three of six penalty attempts and slotted a drop goal on the hour mark to give his team a 17-13 advantage.
Photo: AFP
Left-wing Milford Keresoma went over on 34 minutes for the lone New Zealand try, with flyhalf Ihaia West contributing the other points via a conversion and three penalties.
New Zealand won the previous four editions of the Junior World Championship since it was introduced in 2008, while South Africa finished third three times and sixth last year.
A titanic end-to-end struggle between the under-20 sides captivated the crowd and created a wonderful atmosphere and advertisement for rugby union, apart from an ugly incident on 58 minutes.
South Africa lock Paul Willemse pulled the flowing dreadlocks of massive New Zealand prop Ofa Tu’ungafasi, who retaliated by punching the aggressor and both received red cards from English referee Greg Garner.
The Baby Blacks squandered a late chance to close the gap when they overthrew at a line-out close to the South Africa try line, surrendered possession and it was the home team who finished camped in opposition territory.
Wales, who upset New Zealand in the pool phase before suffering a semi-finals hiding from the same side, finished third with a 25-17 victory over Argentina after withstanding a late Baby Pumas rally.
Ireland defeated France 18-7 for fifth place, England edged Australia 17-13 in the seventh-place play-off, Scotland crushed Samoa 62-28 to end ninth and Fiji pipped Italy 19-17 to avoid the wooden spoon in the 12-team championship.
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
A debate over the soul of soccer is raging in FIFA World Cup holders Argentina, pitting defenders of the social role of the beautiful game against the government of libertarian Argentine President Javier Milei, who wants to turn clubs into for-profit companies. Argentina, which gave the world Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, is home to some of the world’s most devoted soccer fans — a fact attributed by supporters like Gabriel Nicosia to the clubs’ community outreach. Nicosia is a lifelong supporter of San Lorenzo, a more than 100-year-old first division club based in the working-class Buenos Aires neighborhood of Boedo where
RSS