Baby Boks bounce into junior semifinal

The Baby Boks made it into the semifinals of the Junior World Championships in New Zealand yesterday after beating Samoa 21-8.

The under-20 side made heavy work of their match in Pukekohe against their burly Pacific Island counterparts in the last of their Pool C matches as they came back from 7-8 down at halftime.

The team seems to be making a habit of leaving things to the latter stages of the 80 minutes.

In their opening match against Scotland, the side came back after the Scots took an early lead to claim a 61-5 win. Against hosts New Zealand, it was the same before they eventually secured a 33-24 victory.

Dawie Theron's side was almost its own worst enemy against Samoa.

Although South Africa had the bulk of the possession and created a number of scoring opportunities, they were heavily let down by their own handling errors, coupled with the fierce defending of the physical Samoans.

The Baby Boks fumbled no less than three tries.

"We must give Samoa credit for making it a huge contest. They battled all the way and made it difficult for us to build momentum," coach Theron said after the match.

"We spoilt three clear-cut chances to score, but we would have learnt a lot from this win in very difficult conditions," he said.

"If you look at the score between England and Argentina, you can see that the weather played a huge role."

South Africa are now in the semis in Auckland on Sunday, when they will meet the Kiwis for the second time in the tournament.

Ireland and defending champs England will contest the other semifinal.