Bafana Nhleko: 'South Africa fans have every right to be upset'

Bafana Nhleko has issued a conciliatory message to Junior Boks fans, admitting they have every right to be upset after South Africa failed to advance to the semi-finals of the World Rugby U20 Championship for the first time since 2011. His team not only needed to beat England in the puddles of Athlone but they also had to win by a margin wide enough so that the match points divvy would be five to the hosts and zero to the visitors.

That would have pulled them level with the English on 10 points and with Argentina also on the same number following their 52-12 dismissal of Fiji, top spot in the pool would have been awarded to the team with the best points difference in the three-way tie.

In the end, these mathematics weren’t needed as the Junior Boks lost 12-17 to an 86th-minute England try, which left them finishing third in the pool and eighth overall in the ranking heading into match day four where they must now play Argentina against in a fifth to eighth place semi-final.

“They have got a right to be upset,” suggested Nhleko when asked by RugbyPass if he had a message for South African fans annoyed that their team hasn’t got the desired results, losing to England after a 12-31 hammering by the Argentinians last Thursday in Stellenbosch.

“The Springbok jersey is a proud jersey and we have been in the semi-final for the last 10 years, something like that. Very disappointing and none more so disappointed than us as a group in not being able to perform on our home soil. As I keep saying, the boys aren’t going to stop trying. We are hoping that we can finish the tournament in a good light together. Something small to smile about, a consolation.”

When he spoke he had just come back down the dressing room tunnel after fronting a media briefing where the South African media probed him for answers regarding their failure. “Good questions I guess about the programme and where we are, and I keep stressing the fact there are lots of good players in this group and I am hoping these two games don’t define them as people going forward,” he insisted.

“The biggest thing for us is to make sure we finish the tournament on a good note. These boys are really good players. It just hasn’t gone our way., Partly our own fault and partly just, you know, that is how sport goes sometimes. But the important thing is we have two more games, we’ll stick to the process and make sure we get back on our game and hopefully finish as high as we can.

“We believe in that, it [developing players] has always been the mantra. We want to win. It would be nice to be playing in a semi-final and a final but we also understand that there is a bigger picture to this. The bigger picture is making sure that some of these boys that are sitting here now in a year or two’s time are part of senior groups and hopefully some of the hurt they feel now will fuel them to go on to do greater things.”

Losing the way they did to England in a final play that took six minutes to complete due to repeated infringements near their own try line hurt. “Cruel but that’s sport and that is what makes it entertaining, the fact that a team can score right at the end to win the game,” continued the South African coach.

“That being said, very tough game. Conditions were quite tough but both sides came out to play. It was quite impressive that. I thought our boys’ effort in bouncing back after the Argentina game was really selfless. Sad about the result but super proud of the boys’ effort.

“We were in a dark place after Argentina just because it wasn’t so much the scoreboard, the performance wasn’t really good and then today we showed a good fight.”

What about the opportunity of getting back at Argentina and showing there genuinely isn’t as wide a gulf as suggested by the 19-point margin of defeat on match day two?

“We won’t have to do much analysis, we know what is coming. The same applies for them. We will have to get up for it. The bodies are sore. We will give the boys a day or two off and then get back into how we are going to play against them.”

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