GRUISSAN – Junior Springbok captain Salmaan Moerat arrived at their base in Gruissan in the south of France late on Saturday night, ahead of their World Rugby Under-20 Championship campaign.
The team departed Cape Town late on Friday and it took close to 24 hours for them to arrive at their hotel after flying via Paris and Montpellier and then finishing off the journey with a bus trip to Gruissan.
“We arrived last night and immediately went through our recovery procedures, and we are now very excited about what lies ahead,” said Moerat.
“We know the tournament is going to be a massive challenge, but we come off a solid preparation phase.
“We intend approaching the tournament game by game, and our first match is against Georgia, so we will do whatever we can to prepare as well as possible for that.”
The team had their first field session in France on Sunday morning and Moerat said it was now a case on building on the preparation they did at home as they look forward to their opening match on Wednesday against Georgia.
“We did most of our preparation at home, so we will work on the finer details in the next few days,” said Moerat.
“We played against Georgia in our warm-up matches and we have an idea of what to expect from them. But they are going to be a tougher outfit on Wednesday, so we will do our homework on them, and hopefully, it will go well.”
Wednesday’s match against Georgia, which marks the opening game of the tournament, will be played at Stade Aimé Giral in Perpignan at 18h30, and will be broadcast live on SuperSport.
Junior Springbok Chean Roux will announce his team for this encounter on Tuesday.
The Junior Springboks will face Ireland on Sunday, 3 June, and hosts France on Thursday, 7 June, at the Stade d’Honneur du Parc des Sports et de l'Amitié in Narbonne respectively in their remaining pool matches.
The two World Rugby U20 Championship semifinals will be hosted on Tuesday, 12 June, in Narbonne and Perpignan respectively.
All 12 participating teams will be in action in Beziers on Sunday, 17 June, for the final day of matches, which will conclude with the final at Stade de la Méditerranée.