Junior Bok preview
The 2025 Junior Boks ended their campaign as U20 World Champions but they were by no means perfect in 2025, suffering two losses at home during the TRC U20 against the Junior Wallabies and the NZ U20s. They’ll want to keep improving in 2026 and will target both tournaments this year. Will they succeed? I’ve looked at two of their trial games – one against France U20s in late 2025 and a recent game against Georgia U20 – while trying to gain some insight into how they’re going to approach the season in 2026.
Hot on (counter-)attack
The backbone of last year’s World Cup win was not the forward pack but the lethal back 3 of Jaco Williams, Cheswill Jooste and Gilermo Mentoe who, alongside halfback Haashim Pead, tore teams to shreds on the counter-attack, running riot on the hardened pitches of a sweltering Italian summer. Those 4 players combined for 26 line breaks, 51 beaten defenders, and 17 tries scored across just 5 games, blowing away the opposition before the forwards took centre stage grinding their way to victory in their final against NZ U20s.
Georgia in July will provide similar conditions. Pead, Williams and Mentoe are no longer available but Jooste can still be selected. It’s unlikely he’ll feature at the U20 TRC, however, as he’s already a regular starter for the Vodacom Bulls in the URC and Champions Cup (7 appearances, 4 tries, 6 line breaks, 24 defenders beaten).
And while this year’s back 3 doesn’t look quite as lethal as last year’s (especially without Jooste), there are some new players who look like they can provide plenty of attacking impetus. One of these is fullback Zekhethelo Siyaya. Siyaya is highly rated in South African rugby circles and it’s not difficult to see why. The Sharks prospect possesses excellent footwork, has a neat burst of acceleration and can use his hip strength to bust through contact, allowing him to shake off defenders and run through the gap. Against the Georgian U20s, these skills resulted in a few highlight reel tries.
Siyaya’s professional counterpart would be a player like Rayasi, a player equally able to shake off defenders and set up others
That said, Siyaya also displayed some clear things to work on. In challenging conditions, Siyaya struggled with the Georgian box kicks, getting his catch technique wrong on multiple occasions.
Something to work on: Siyaya dropped quite a few balls, without all that much pressure from Georgian kick chase
The biggest attacking addition to the 2026 side comes, I believe, not from the back 3 this time but from the midfield. Against the Georgians the Junior Boks picked the young midfield of Ethan Adams (12) and Markus Muller (13). Both players are still eligible for the 2027 tournament, and it seems likely the midfield pairing could pose a real problem for U20 defences for the foreseeable future.
Both Adams and Muller are two real gain line threats, with Muller already earning comparisons to '80s Springbok legend Danie Gerber. The worry is that this time the South African hyperbole isn’t even that inaccurate. With a low centre of gravity, a strong fend and tidy acceleration, Muller can bust through both high and low tacklers to good effect, much in the same way the former Eastern Province 13 would terrorize opposition at both Currie Cup and international level.
The trial game against Georgia U20s showed how Adams and Muller offer a potentially lethal one-two punch in midfield, Adams compressing the defensive line with a strong carry after which Muller is able to slice through and set up Lindsey Jansen for the score.
Attacking through the middle: this year’s Junior Boks might take up a more abrasive game plan
The SA U20s back 3 lethalness will largely depend on whether Cheswill Jooste will be available for the side, with the other threats, both at halfback and in the back 3, looking less polished than in 2025. Still, they might not be necessary, with the midfield combo of Adams and Muller busting holes and creating tries from the middle of the field.
Tight five beef
The Junior Boks’ greater attacking ambition is not so much a tactical revolution as it is an addendum, their traditional strength of the tight five not yet sacrificed at the altar of counter-attack. The likely starting front five – Oliver Reid, Siphosethu Mnebelele, Danie Kruger, Riley Norton, and Heinrich Theron – are still a sizable bunch, with the likes of Kruger and Theron already sitting around the 120kg mark. Unlike say a Logan Wallace, it is highly unlikely you’ll see one of these players receiving the final pass at the end of a field-long counter-attack.
But that doesn’t mean these players don’t work hard, they simply work differently. The Junior Bok props are selected, first and foremost, for their intent to dominate their opposition. The first area of dominance is in the set piece. In a recent trial game against the French U20s at the end of 2025, the front row of Reid, Mnebelele and Kruger wanted to stamp their mark in the very first minute of the game, attacking the French scrum and earning a penalty.
The Junior Bok scrum is potentially not scrumming fully straight but their dominance sways the ref’s decision-making in their favour
While this set piece aggression can sometimes backfire – Reid was penalized multiple times in the Georgia game for boring in – it does create pressure on the referee’s decision-making, who is forced to blow his whistle. The Junior Bok scrum wants to present the picture of a pack that is stronger than its opposite. As such, they’ll even go after the opposition scrum on their feed, looking to shunt them off the ball. When they succeed in doing so, the picture of dominance is complete.
Pushing as a pack: the intent of the Junior Bok pack is clear, which makes it easier to target something like scrum dominance
Winning the scrum does not equal winning the game (the French U20s would end up winning 20 to 12). But what it does do is add another weapon to an already impressive armoury, allowing the Junior Boks to attack their opposition in multiple ways. With the grounds in South Africa soggy and less conducive to counter-attacking rugby, expect the Junior Bok tight five to play a big role in the tournament.
Rush defence
The set piece isn’t the only area in which the tight five are expected to put in serious work. The SA U20s like to employ an aggressive defence, with the props expected to dominate contact close to the ruck while the locks are responsible for both pillar defence as well as occasional cover defence.
In a rush defence, the organisation of the scramble D is at least as important as the defensive line speed. It has as its role to cover overlaps on the edge as well as further suffocating the opposition attack, taking away any space for multiphase attack. In the example below, we can see Heinrich Theron (the big 4 lock) sprinting sideways while the defensive line is pushing up, the Bulls lock following the ball laterally in order to make sure that the overlap can be shut down as soon as it is made.
Putting in the work: Theron uses up a lot of energy to close the defensive gap, showing also why South African teams often go 6/2 with two locks on the bench
At another moment, we see Theron and Mnebelele putting in a similar effort again, full-on sprinting laterally across the field to reach the space where the ball could potentially go.
Look at the tight five working hard in the background to cover the distance: everyone has their clear role in the Junior Bok defensive system
These sort of efforts are not always as noticeable but encapsulate well why it’s so hard to score against a well-executed rush defence: you don’t have to break one but multiple defensive lines, with line speed coming at you both in a straight line and in a lateral one as well. In 2025 the Junior Bok defence could be, at times, somewhat leaky but early signs show that the 2026 side has, at the very least, a good grasp on the principles of defensive line speed.
This is exemplified really well from a Georgian set piece attack from a scrum in the middle of the field: while the Junior Bok backs rush up (and fail to get man and ball), the disconnecting loose forwards sprint, not towards the ball, but towards the available space. This shows that the Junior Bok D isn’t a typical man-on-man defence but acts more like a zone defence, where they want to get numbers in certain spaces in order to shut down and suffocate the opposition attacking movement.
Even when the rush makes a bad read, the Junior Bok defence has still beaten the attack to the available space
This off-the-ball movement is often the thing defences struggle with when implementing line speed. All defenders, not just those rushing up and making the first defensive reads, have specific tasks. When players aren’t properly aware of their jobs, in scramble defence for example, things can go wrong very quickly.
One of the NZ U20 development teams, the Centurions, defended with great line speed during the recent trial games in Taupō. They were coached by Wes Clarke, who likes to employ rush defence with his teams. But, if anything, they were a good test case of how quickly things can go sour when implementing line speed for the first time. Their opposition during the first game, the Barbarians, were able to outflank them at will, and no one was able to put a halt to the attacking movement once the first defensive line was broken.
Too easy: Verster throws one cut-out ball and the floodgates open
Leota and Fale here have a similar role to Theron and Mnebelele above: they are tasked with scramble defence, moving laterally in order to shut down any successful line breaks from the opposition. But whereas Theron and Mnebelele were full-on sprinting to shut these attacks down, Fale and Leota are conserving energy. This is somewhat understandable as they are also their side’s main carriers. Yet this exposes a clear system issue because now there is no one to do the defensive work and effectively close down the space. They are easily beaten to the space by the attack due to their slow reaction to the line break, and then there is no stopping the Barbarians’ attackers for the easy score.
Tl;dr
Last year’s Junior Boks ended up as World Champions but were a bit inconsistent throughout the year. Based on the early trial games, it looks like coach Kevin Foote is working on creating a more complete team, addressing some of the issues plaguing the team during last year’s U20 TRC. Traditional strengths like the set piece and a big tight five are still valued and there seems to be a renewed emphasis on putting in the work on defence.
And while the counter-attack might not be as potent as last year’s World Cup group stage extravaganza, especially without Jooste, some new threats have been added to the attack. Fullback Siyaya will be one to watch while the new midfield combination of Adams and Muller has the chance to be something special for the next two years.