‘These men have never come up against forwards that are 150kgs’

This wasn’t supposed to be how it turned out for New Zealand at the Junior World Championship, Clark Laidlaw’s U20s left nursing a painful 14-35 game two defeat to France that has left them in need of a favor elsewhere next Tuesday if they are to ultimately make the semi-finals.

The Baby Blacks are the competition’s most titled team, winning six of its dozen editions. However, quite a leap of faith is now required to believe that this class of 2023 can somehow still get out of their pool stage jail and make the play-offs.

Having struggled in the opening half versus Wales last Saturday, trailing 5-19 before hitting back to win 27-26, the expectation was that a lesson would have been learned about slow starts.

It wasn’t, as New Zealand were behind 0-21 at the break on Thursday in Paarl and it was only after the concession of the bonus point fourth try to the French that they finally raised a gallop.

They scored two converted tries to halve the 28-point margin, but they conceded soon after to quickly quash the notion that a comeback was on and it left head coach Laidlaw ruminating about the size differential between the two packs.

The latest Tuilagi giant off the rank! #WorldRugbyU20s #FRAvNZR pic.twitter.com/bGsadPEa7Z

— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) June 29, 2023

“Ultimately it is a really disappointing day and loads of lessons,” he told RugbyPass in the aftermath, the rain cascading down as he spoke outside the marquee that was the New Zealand dressing room. “I said last week we were here to learn.

“We want to win, let’s never forget that, but these men have never come up against forwards that are 150kgs and two or three of them all in the same forward pack, so we have got to learn how we deal with that.

“I thought our scrum was outstanding. That was a real big plus that we can scrum, but we have got maul, we have got to (be better at the) breakdown; we have got to get those parts right too.

“They [France] scored the tries and their weight and their physicality when they got in the 22 caused us problems. It was only a couple of times defensively where we didn’t get them on the ground and they were able to get massive gainline and quick ball. That is their game and I guess the scoreline is always a reflection really.”

Particularly wounding was New Zealand’s failure to score in the first half. “It was disappointing to go three tries down. It’s fine margins. At 7-0, we had a couple of opportunities in the 22 that we didn’t take. We had chances near half-time – we didn’t take one of those and that can be the difference.

“You saw in the second half when we got the ball we were able to put it in space and we caused them a lot of problems. They were really short in defence, they went down taking cramp a lot, so maybe the conditions didn’t play into our favour, but we were disappointed with that first half.

“There was lots of endeavour. I thought for large parts we defended really well and when we could get the ball to space I thought we looked dangerous, but ultimately in conditions like this against a team with a huge forward pack, the sort of weight at times wore us down and we couldn’t get the field position or the territory with the possession.

“In that first half we were pinned in our own third, so it was a really mixed performance. I thought France first half were pretty clinical and put us under a lot of pressure through their forward play and those big bodies.”

New Zealand will complete their pool with a match versus Rob Penney’s winless Japan. They will be expected to win with a bonus and shift their points total to 10, which would be good enough for second place in their pool behind France, but with just one best runner-up progressing to the semi-finals along with the three pool winners, they would need a major favour elsewhere to secure their progress.

“It’s not in our hands now,” accepted Laidlaw. “We will dust ourselves off and get a look at the results around the competition… If it becomes an option and points difference is still there, then we have got to go after it.”