Some experienced heads have called time on illustrious Crusaders careers ahead of the 2025 DHL Super Rugby Pacific season.
The stage is set for both NPC semi-finals with Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Wellington and Waikato naming their teams.
The top 50 prospects under 23 years of age currently plying their trade in New Zealand features three capped All Blacks already.
England flew out of South Africa last Saturday evening to Heathrow as the rightful champions, the consistency of their potent scrum and manipulative defence helping them to a deserved first title since 2016.
Both teams were soundly beaten in the semi-finals, New Zealand swatted aside 55-31 by French flair while Ireland were depowered 31-20 by a physical England who especially bullied their scrum.
The Baby Blacks came into the fixture at the Cape Town Stadium having beaten the French 27-26 just 10 days earlier in a pool match in Stellenbosch.
Beaten 26-27 by an 80th-minute Baby Blacks penalty in a July 4 pool match in Stellenbosch, the French only reached the last four as the tournament’s best runner-up across the three pools courtesy of last Tuesday’s victory over Wales.
It's semi-finals Sunday at the World Rugby U20 Championship and following last Tuesday’s weather-affected schedule, the hope will be that all six matches will be played to an 80-minute conclusion unlike on match day three when there were just four and a half matches completed due to the heavy rain making pitches unplayable.
Knowing they effectively had a ‘gimme’ versus minnows Spain on match day three, they rested numerous first-choice players but they will now run out at the DHL Stadium with a team that has 10 alterations from last Tuesday in Stellenbosch.
New Zealand U20 opener their U20 Championship campaign against Wales U20 on Sunday morning (NZST).