The future is green and gold

There is still one round left in the 2026 U20 Rugby Championship, but the outcome of this year’s contest is already a foregone conclusion…or so we thought, until SANZAAR apparently changed the bonus point rules. After another comprehensive victory in the second round of the competition, it appeared that the Junior Springboks (or Baby Boks as they are often affectionately called) had already secured their first ever U20 Rugby Championship title on Sunday. With a game in hand. Yes, I know I’m basically repeating myself, but it’s impressive enough that it bears saying again. Because these youngsters didn’t just win their games in the first two rounds against Argentina and Australia, they did so emphatically. Now, however, it appears that SANZAAR has reverted to the old way of allocating bonus points, meaning that a bonus point is awarded for scoring four or more tries, rather than three more tries than your opponent. Which in turn means that there is an outside chance that New Zealand or Argentina could still topple the Boks, given that they have 5 points apiece instead of 4. I don’t know. It’s all very confusing, and the fact that SANZAAR’s social media and website updates are haphazard at best, so we’re relying on multiple different versions of the log floating around, doesn't help. Who knows. SA Rugby themselves have reworded their latest post-match announcement to suggest that the Baby Boks only have one hand on the trophy, rather than the firm grasp we previously imagined, so I guess we’ll take a cautiously optimistic approach, and assume that we still need one point out of the final game against New Zealand. You know how I hate to jinx anything anyway.

Nevertheless, whether they’ve absolutely, or only almost, secured the title, this is a group of young players worth celebrating. On the surface, it seems fairly obvious for the team that are currently the U20 World Champions. But if we think back to previous U20 Rugby Championships, the progress they have made is impressive. In 2025, during the second iteration of the competition, the Baby Boks won only one of their games, against Argentina in the first round, before suffering narrow defeats to Australia and New Zealand, and finishing third on the log. In the first year of the contest, 2024, they drew against New Zealand, narrowly beat Argentina, and lost against Australia, finishing second on the log. What has made this year’s competition so special, though, isn’t the fact that they’re winning games they may previously have lost – it’s how  they’re winning. The Baby Boks are playing a sublime brand of quintessentially South African rugby at the moment, they truly seem to have found their identity, and their victories have been nothing short of emphatic. In round 1, they toppled Argentina 48-21, and actually, the biggest concern during that game was that they took their collective foot off the pedal and let Los Pumitas back into the match, after racing ahead in the first half. And in round 2, it was an even more decisive victory, with the Baby Boks taking the spoils 56-17 over the Junior Wallabies. The Australians will certainly rue their ill-discipline, but ultimately it was the setpiece and attacking masterclass from the young South Africans that sealed their fate.

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Of course, the likely changes to the table mean that Saturday’s game against New Zealand is not the dead rubber we may have thought it was, but even if it had been, coach Kevin Foote would not be happy for the players to coast through it. The Baby Blacks won the contest in 2024 and 2025, they will be hurting after a historic loss to Los Pumitas on Sunday, and they are bound to want to prove a point. But we can be sure our young guns are going to come out blazing too. It’s not just a question of pride, or securing a clean sweep for the Baby Boks, or even clinching the title (for real this time) – every match is crucial preparation for what’s still to come this year. The Junior World Championship kicks off in Georgia on 27 June, which means there’s less than two months to go before the Baby Boks begin their title defence. They’re in Pool A with the hosts, as well as Wales and Uruguay, who respectively finished 9^th, 8^th, and didn’t participate in the 2025 Championship. With the way they have been playing lately, they should feel confident about how the pool stage of the tournament will go. Nevertheless, Kevin Foote and the rest of his coaching staff, and indeed, the players themselves, will be taking no chances – whatever the deal is with the bonus points, there are no dead rubbers when you have a World Championship title defence to prepare for.

There’s also a bigger picture to consider. With young talent like Ethan Adams, Vusi Moyo, Yaqeen Ahmed and Jack Benade (to name but a few) thriving under the quietly confident leadership of Riley Norton, we can feel genuinely optimistic about what lies ahead for SA Rugby. And it gets even more exciting when we think about the wonderful young players, like Zekhethelo Siyaya, who haven’t even featured in the U20 Rugby Championship because they’ve been lighting up the URC. The future is bright, and it’s definitely green and gold.