Hapless Junior Springboks fail at the basics in embarrassing first-ever loss to gallant Italy

In one of the great turnarounds and upsets of the world game, Italy taught the Junior Springboks a harsh lesson in how important the basics are with a stunning 34-26 victory in Thursday's World Rugby Under-20 Championship encounter in Paarl.

The result is patently astounding given that the visitors collapsed to a messy 15-43 reverse to Argentina last weekend but thoroughly deserved as they mastered atrocious conditions at Paarl Gimnasium - where incessant rain and two matches before this skirmish left the pitch in a state - to record a historic first win over South Africans in the tournament.

Some will point out that Junior Bok coach Bafana Nhleko's selection strategy for the match, which saw him bring in six new faces and a raft of internal switches, perhaps contributed to an embarrassing performance though it must be pointed out that rotation has been standard practice for the South Africans in previous years.

However, seldom has it backfired as spectacularly as this.

South Africa, in all honesty, were nowhere in this game.

In a match that demanded solid set-piece management, they won 75% of their scrums (which was sort of an improvement on the Georgia opener) and a mere 62% of their line-out ball.

That pales in comparison with the mind-boggling 17 penalties that they conceded on the day.

In fact, all four of Italy's tries came from the hosts sheer inability to find any sort of discipline.

They would invariably concede a batch of quick-fire penalties, allowing Italy to win field position with a minimum of fuss before holding their structure superbly at maul time and keeping their phase play efficient.

Italy commenced their scoring through a penalty try when Baby Bok prop Mawande Mdanda was shown a yellow card for dragging a