The brilliant young u.19 team of the Blue Bulls will meet Western Province in the final of the SA Rugby u.19 Provincial Championship in Cape Town next week after they progressed to the decider by winning the Coastal and Inland Sections respectively.

The Blue Bulls u.19’s drew 27-27 (half-time 10-19) with the Golden Lions u.19 team in the SA Rugby u.19 Championship Inland Section final at Emirates Airline Park on Friday afternoon. The Blue Bulls youngsters advanced to the main SA Rugby u.19 Championship final because they outscored their Gauteng neighbours four tries to two.

They put to rest a successful Inland Section campaign after beating the Falcons u.19 (80-10) before silencing the Free State Cheetahs u.19 with a final score of 55-17.

The Falcons, who borrowed 19 players from Blue Bulls u.20 club teams for this tournament, finished third after beating the Leopards’ team 29-24 in the playoffs for third and fourth places.

One of the young men who seized his chance in this way and made a big impression on experts with his performance for the Falcons is flyhalf Ethan Wentzel. The young rising star, who has already played senior club rugby for Centurion as 19-year old this year, would definitely have got a tick behind his name from the SA u.20 selectors who attended the tournament.

On Saturday in Paarl, Western Province had to fend off a determined Sharks outfit to win their decider in the Coastal section by 20-19.

Junior Springbok coach Chean Roux said the talent on display in Johannesburg and Paarl was of a great standard and that they have identified a number of new players with an eye on the SA Under-20 squad for 2020.

“I think this tournament was a massive success and the quality on rugby displayed by these youngsters was of a very high standard,” said Roux.

According to Roux, this tournament is very important and he believes the new format made it even more exciting.

“We’ve just realised once again that there is a lot of wonderful talent out there – many of these players never got opportunities to play in the Youth Weeks – and they were afforded a chance to show what they can do at this tournament. Many players put up their hands, and it was massively encouraging to see a bunch of players from the so-called smaller unions take their opportunities, while it’s also very important for these players to be exposed to rugby at a higher level,” the SA u.20 coach concluded.

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