Southland Boys' book semifinal spot with big win
The Jason Dermody-coached Invercargill school team ran in 11 tries in the game played over just 25-minute halves.
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Southland Boys’ High School will on Friday playoff for a place in the 2024 World Youth Rugby Tournament final after winning its pool to secure a semifinals spot.
Southland Boys’ ran up a 73-0 win over Jesuit High School from the United States on Wednesday to win the pool and progress to a semifinal.
On the opening two days of the tournament, Southland Boys’ High School recorded hard-fought wins over Japanese schools Higashi Fukuoka High School and Kokugakain University Tochigi High.
Those two Japanese had earlier posted large wins over Jesuit High School - Southland Boys’ final pool opponent - so there was plenty of confidence they would also get the job done against the American school on Wednesday and progress to Friday’s semifinal.
That’s exactly how it played out.
The Jason Dermody-coached Invercargill school team ran in 11 tries in the game played over 25-minute halves.
Blindside flanker Josh Cairns opened the scoring after just two minutes, before Taine Withy, Jimmy Taylor, Will Garrick, and Hunter Morrison also went about scoring first half tries to make it 33-0 at halftime.
Southland Boys’ were in again quickly in the second half when fullback Taylor crossed for his second try, and they continued to rack up the points from there.
They scored a further five second-half tries after that with two of them coming to wing Nick Ellenden, and the others to Joe Loffhagen, Crenshaw Conroy, and Presley McHugh.
Given the nature of the game, the Southland Boys’ management opted to give some different players some extended game time and test the depth of the squad.
While it was an encouraging way to book a semifinal, the reality is Friday’s shot at booking a place in the 2024 Sanix World Youth Tournament decider will be much tougher.
Friday’s semifinal will be against Osaka Toin High School at 4.30pm (NZ time).
St Augustine’s College will play Toin Gakuen High School in the other semifinal.
Southland Boys’ High School does look to have some injury troubles at halfback. Jimmy Taylor started Wednesday’s game at fullback, moved to halfback to cover injury, and finished the game at first five-eighth.
Southland Boys’ High School landed the trip to the Sanix World Rugby Youth Tournament on the back of its 2023 national schools title.
They are one of 16 teams at the tournament with eight of them Japanese schools.
The other international schools competing are Truro College (England), Windhoek Gymnasium (Namibia), Mahatma Gandhi Memorial School (Fiji), Chungbuk High School (Korea), St Augustine’s College (Australia), Chien Kuo High School (Chinese Taipei), and Jesuit High School (United States).
The 16 teams are split into four pools with the winners of each pool progressing to the semifinals.
Following the Sanix World Youth Tournament Southland Boys’ High School will head to Invercargill’s sister city Kumagaya for a visit where they will play a local university team.