The home side scored 13 points in the space of nine crucial minutes late in the first-half to build a lead they would never lose in a close contest at the City Park Stadium in Crawford. They eventually outscored Wales by three tries to two, but saw a 20 point lead cut to an uncomfortable margin in the end.
The opening exchanges were tight as both teams tried to make their presence felt, but were shut out by good defence. SA Schools fullback Gianni Lombard kicked his side into a 6-0 lead, but then sae his side loses flanker Charl Serdyn to a yellow card.
But that did not stop the home team from moving further ahead as hooker PJ Botha touched down for a try from a rolling maul that Lombard converted to make it 13-0 at the break. Wales then earned their first points of the match early in the second half thanks to Phil Jones penalty.
This was quickly cancelled out by a fantastic try in the corner by SA Schools winger Wandisile Simelane and then centre Rikus Pretorius added his team’s third try minutes later as the backs managed to sneak through another gap in the Welsh defence.
That score helped to stretch the home lead to 23-3 and leave the Welsh youngsters with a mountain to climb, but they revealed their talent and fighting spirits to dramatically close the gap with two superb tries in the space of four mintues from Jordan Liney and Will Talbot-Davies, both of which were converted by Ben Jones.
The second round of matches will be hosted at Bishops School, in Rondebosch, on Tuesday where Wales will face Italy, who beat SA Schools A 23-20, France will meet the SA Schools and the SA Schools A team will take on England.
