The clash proved to be thrilling, as both sides showed fantastic skills, brute physicality and put in a series of big hits.
England stamped their authority early on with No8 James Chisholm scoring their first try in the fourth minute following a powerful scrum for a 7-0 lead.
SA, however, hit back with the team retaining possession and showing good skills by off-loading in the tackle, which earned them a penalty. Grant Hermanus, who was in fine form for Western Province at the Coca-Cola Craven Week, made the most of the opportunity and reduced the score to 7-3.
This bolstered SA’s confidence and prompted them to retain possession and apply pressure on England, but unfortunately penalties and turnovers at crucial times denied them a few try-scoring opportunities.
The team, however, showed patience on attack and continued to string together phases, and they earned the rewards with inspirational captain and No8 Rikus Bothma scoring their first try of the match in the 19th minute from solid forward play. This handed the hosts a narrow 8-7 lead.
The second quarter, however, proved to be a hard grind as the forwards battled it and out and both teams tightened up their defence.
England, however, got a sniff of the tryline in the dying seconds of the first half, but the tenacious SA defence shut them out to maintain their one-point lead at the break.
The home team continued to assert their authority in the second half and made their way to England’s half where they camped for a few minutes.
A fantastic inside pass to wing Duhan van der Merwe after stringing together a few phases on attack, saw the player dance his way through the defence for their second try. Unfortunately, however, the conversion proved unsuccessful.
But England hit back instantaneously with Chisholm scoring his second try after picking up the ball from the base of the scrum and breaking through to cross the tryline. Olver converted to hand the team a 14-13 lead.
This lead, however, was short-lived as Brandon Thomson slotted over the team’s second penalty to sneak back into a two-point lead, and fortunately for SA, they managed to maintain this until the end.
With the scores close both teams refused to give an inch which resulted in hard-fought third quarter.
England, however, used their effective rolling maul well to get onto the front-foot and work their way into SA’s half. But an intercept by Thomson and quick numbers at the breakdowns earned the home side another penalty, which Thomson converted for a 19-14 lead.
England fought back with intent until the dying seconds, but their efforts were countered by the determined SA defence, which sealed the victory.
In the other matches, the Wales Under-18’s beat France 29-17, while the Western Province Invitational XV defeated Montpellier 36-31 and the Western Province Under-18’s thumped Italy 39-17.
Scorers:
SA Schools 19 (8). Tries: Rikus Bothma, Duhan van der Merwe. Penalties: Grant Hermanus, Brandon Thomson (2).
England 14 (7). Tries: James Chisholm (2). Conversions: Sam Olver (2)
@Tjoppa: Nee man praat maar die Taal. Ek volg steeds. My antwoorde en vra kom in Engels maar almal moet hier rond gerus voel en nie soos Naas Botha in sy tweede taal klink nie.
@Knersus: Ek gaan nou oorslaan Ingels toe om Beet te help. Do you think if our tight five was in charge the margin of win could have been better?
Bedoel Marius Louw (Sy pa was Tertius)
@Knersus: Ja, beslis. Tertius Louw (7)sou beslis daardie leemte gevul het, maar ons sal in die volgende paar jare baie meer van hom sien- groot dasknoop of nie
Ek voorspel dat hy Springbok sal wees teen 24.
Ek was beindruk oor die algemeen met die span, behalwe dat ek verwag het dat met die lengte van ons slotte, ons bietjie meer sou “contest” het in die lynstane. Die lostrio ook nie altyd by die afbreukpunte nie en ek dink die bal was hopeloos te stadig versprei na agter.
@Tjoppa: Nou praat jy boet! stem
@Knersus: Speler wat jou beindruk/teleurgestel het?
DIe span van Engeland speel blykbaar al drie jaar saam, dit kon mens duidelik sien. Hulle het baie hard en fisies gespeel en SA beslis voor aangevat. Beide voor en agterspelers van SA het my beindruk. DIe bal het baie min na die agterlyn gegaan en die kere as die agterlyn die bal gekry het, het daar iets gebeur. Die skeidsregter, van Wallis, kon ook meer voordeel toegelaat het. SA het op n stadium net met 14 man gespeel agv geelkaart. Die span om te klop in hierdie toernooi is Wallis. Hulle het geweldig beindruk teen Frankryk. Teen volgende Saterdag, sal die SA span beslis meer as span saamspeel.
Sa Schools team first game. England’s team been together for a six nations tournament?? In circumstances then a very good game for the SA school team. I dont think the coach will let the team allow soft tries like those from England in again. On both occasions our flanks overran the attacking player {no 8}. Typical mistake from a team playing together for the first time. The SA School team should maybe play a warm up game to iron mistakes like that out. A pity one of the bloggers didn’t watch the game to give some feedback corncerning the game.
Oh, and most of these boys come from the Grammar or private schools – the “softies or toffee noses” of English society. The inner city schools, the “hard and tough”areas of England, produce mostly soccer players
We often talk about the strength of SA SBR and the “fantastic structures” and tournaments, like CW, which is found nowhere else in the world. If this was indeed the case, it is certainly not being reflected on the field of play. We are either fooling ourselves (not uncommon) or the strongest group is not being assembled or selected. Its really that simple. It would be interesting to know what the attrition rate is for the English boys, including their U 20s and 23s. How many go “missing” from club rugby and higher?
@Tjoppa: I must say looking at 3 of those no.8 tries, they looked very soft indeed.
Anyway the days of a no.8 picking the ball up at the back of a 5m scrum and carrying it over for a try are not dead after all.
I saw Liam Meesam get in during the SR final but that scrum came close to going thru 90% and virtually eliminated the 1st line D in the process, giving him an almost clear run at the tryline.
@beet: Like I stated before it is a matter of choice.
@EG Ouer: I say send them to the Bronx (Panne) for six weeks. If the survive that they will be as hard as nails.
@Tjoppa: I watched the Sharks u21 team destroy the Leopards u21 yesterday. This Leopards team was able to beat the Sharks at u19 level over the last 2 seasons so I expected a lot more from them esp since that game was in Potch. Anyway the Leopards have problems but focusing on the positives, part of the reason I believe the Sharks were able to win was the mobility of our props. By being able to get to the breakdown quickly and exert a physical presence there, helped the Sharks dominate the collisions. On other occasions these same two props have been standout ball carriers however they have both had their fair share of difficult to cope with experiences at the hands of English scrummers in the past while representing SA at age-group level. Both have been on the winning side vs England. Massive contributors in the loose, under pressure in the scrumming set piece. Isn’t the modern game about finding the right balance? At the moment we are not finding this balance.
@McCulleys Workshop: I’m talking about our matches vs England dating back to 2010 at u18 and u20 level but excluding this year as I have not seen their team. Our team has churned out the results but we often look like we have had to box above our weight to win the fight when one would assume that us being South Africa and they being England, the roles should have been reversed with little England having to play out of their skins to beat us not vice versa.
I’ve added the YOUTUBE link to the 4 tries at the top of the page but also here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYymvvcqmb4&feature=c4-overview&list=UUIAzx_W6lIE-ppQH0_a832Q
@beet: Beet, I find it hard to think of RG, Du Preez’s and Bothma as being outgunned for size, weight and pace, although our front row may be on the smallish side, but certainly no push over. Don’t you think it is more of a case of game time that’s needed? Or do we require Lance Armstrongs doctor?
@beet: It is a known fact that sport at schools in the UK is dying quickly. The rugby clubs that is mostly professional has stepped in and their junior rugby is healthy. The prommissing players are quickly absorbed into a professional setup which really take care of their youngsters and they get developed.
In South Africa it is the junior player and his parents that need to take care of their physical development up to the age of 18. Then only do the unions step in. Some schools are also stepping up their efforts but is really amateurs if we compare them to the UK clubs.
I think that should clear up, sort of, why they are bigger stronger and faster.
Regarding the scrums my humble opinion. Long have the world looked at the Springboks for leadership in all that is rugby. But since the inception of professionalism everything changed. Rugby is now like the dietary industry. Every six months a new fadd and everybody follow.
The only team in the world that kept to their basic values is the All Blacks. They play the same basic game than 40 years ago.
Our current coaches are looking for 1.9m props weighing 120kg’s and 11 sec 100m time that can pass, side step tackle and scrum. These players must be accepted is only available once in a life time. But unfortunately as long as we win some games the coaches will see themselves as successfull and continue with the madness.
A prop’s job is scrum scrum scrum and support in the line out. If there is time and energy left he may run with the ball. But hey I am old fashioned what do I, the All Blacks, Northern Hemisphere, Argentina and other old people know?
@beet & Tjoppa ; Agree totally on this. We want to go out and play this physical rugby but the minute we get some sort of resistance we put the brakes on. Our kids need to be developed better to face any sort of resistance
@Tjoppa: I was also recently involved in discussions on the size of the England junior teams. I don’t know about this u18 team but over the last few years, their team has looked unnaturally big and in some respects it feels like we are playing against a team that is at least one year older just based on their size, strength, speed and skills.
I can maybe agree to an argument that their systems are better geared to enhancing the skills and utilising the speed available to them. Certainly any system that idenifies the best players earlier on and has them training together for a prolonged period in a high performance like set up is excepted to deliver better results than a situation where there are kids of various levels of ability playing for 50 different schools around the country during the same time period.
However with regards to conditioning, I’m not accepting of the argument that suggests much better natural results can be achieved via an English HP programme than the opportunites available to those kids playing at 50 different schools. Yes there might be a slight improvement but to the extent that we are witnessing with the naked eye, I’m not convinced.
Obviously we are seeing England make use of better scrumming techniques but it would also be nice to measure now much of their advantage also comes from raw power.
@Tjoppa: Ja Tjoppa. I wonder when the wake up call is going to come regarding scrumming in SA. Last night the 2 Sharks props who are usually praised for their scrumming, did not look nearly as comfortable vs Griquas with the new laws being applied.
As far as knowing what actually happened is concerned: unfortunately most of us have been denied access to info on the game, this despite all forms of cheap to utilise technology and social media avenues being available to the organisers. Last season I felt there were steps taken to develop the SA Schools program into something more meaningful, this year they have gone a bit backwards. The coverage of regular school rugby matches and even festival matches has been far better. Swak!
Beet I could not watch the game but if England’s 8 scored both tries from the back of the scrum can I take it we suffered in the scrums, again?