Junior Springbok Head Coach, Kevin Foote, says he knows he has his work cut out for him to make South African believe that the national youth side can once again be world beaters.
For the South African U20 side, it has been a long time between drinks when it comes to winning on age grade rugby’s biggest stage.
Title drought
The last time the Junior Springboks, also known as the Baby Boks, won a world championship was back in 2012 in Cape Town.
In 2023 and 2024, the Baby Boks also had homeground advantage, but former coach Bafana Nhleko’s side could only manage a third-place finish in the former year, while last year’s campaign was a total disaster with the SA youngsters finishing in 7 th place.
New Broom
In stepped former UCT Ikeys as well as Super Rugby coach with the defunct Melbourne Rebels, Foote, after relocating from Australia to South Africa, with the hopes that he could be the one to lead the junior side back to the top of world rugby.
And in a week’s time, Foote and his team will face their first big test of character when they tackle New Zealand, Australia and Argentina in the second edition of the Rugby Championship U20 competition.
Advantage Baby Boks
And for this year’s edition, the Baby Boks have secured homeground advantage after Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Gqeberha was recently announced as the host venue for match days on 1, 6 and 11 May.
Foote, his management team and players all arrived in Gqeberha on Wednesday evening with the Baby Boks boss full of praise for the hero’s welcome they received from Nelson Mandela Bay residents.
Preparing Well
But, welcoming sideshows aside, Foote says that his side will need to quickly get clarity around their roles and learn to bond as a team:
We had our first field session [in Gqberha] and it was quite a big day for us was all about clarity and making sure that the guys take what we learned in our previous camps, and making sure that everybody is aligned, and we are [also] keeping things pretty simple.
We believe that our accountability piece will be important, but guys can only be accountable if they have clarity [about their roles] and we will support them around that.
Selection Headaches
Meanwhile, all players have reported a clean bill of health ahead of the start of next week’s tournament in Gqeberha, where the Baby Boks tackle Argentina at 16:10 on the opening day.
And of already having sleepless nights about who to select for the first game on 1 May, Foote says:
We have 31 really good and keen players available who are ready to go, so selection will be a challenge for us now, which is also a good thing.
The main thing is just to make sure that the players are calm and have clarity and that we can start to connect and start to build our processes into the Rugby Championship.
