The All Blacks XV squad naming offered a key insight into which players are on All Blacks selectors' radar at the start of this new World Cup cycle.
The top 50 prospects under 23 years of age currently plying their trade in New Zealand features three capped All Blacks already.
Dylan Pledger made such an impression at King’s High School in Dunedin that former Otago outside back and Sports Director Glenn Dickson declared Pledger, “the most impressive” athlete from the school he’s seen.
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.
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.
The Baby Blacks place-kicker had his frustrations during his team’s ding-dong match with France, the defending champions.
The Baby Blacks trailed 0-11 at the break following an opening period where they were heavily penalised on the penalty count, culminating in a yellow card for Andrew Smith.