Was the Junior Boks' wobbliness always on the cards? Rassie wouldn't be surprised

Were the Junior Springboks' unconvincing performances at the current World Rugby Under-20 Championship pre-ordained?

It's perhaps an unfair question to be asking given that Bafana Nhleko's troops have reached the semi-finals of this year's edition, where they will be pitted against high-flying Ireland in Athlone on Sunday.

However, a quick glance at how the pool stages panned out provides a pretty emphatic picture of the host nation's struggles.

South Africa managed to top pool C with nine log points yet only did so because they beat Georgia - who also finished on nine - head-to-head, despite boasting an inferior points difference.

In fact, the Baby All Blacks, who qualified for the last four because they were the best team to finish second in a group, even had a better record than the Junior Boks, garnering 10 log points and a +23 points difference.

All this won't matter if South Africa have an ultimately successful campaign, but it was interesting that Rassie Erasmus, the national director of rugby, informally foresaw the youngsters' struggles when he was quizzed about their prospects earlier in the week before the team's crucial victory over Argentina. 

"With the junior rugby - and I'm really not using it as an excuse because everyone had to deal with it - we have to consider the impact that Covid-19 had, particularly on this group," he said.

"A lot of continuity went awry, getting these players into Under-17 camps, academies, the Craven Week, proved immensely challenging just because the regulations didn't allow us to do so. 

"There was always going to be a time where we feel a bit of a dip in that pipeline because of the vacuum that was there. Then again, it's not an excuse.

"Italy was one of the countries severely affected