Bafana Nhleko says debutant flyhalf Liam Koen will be entrusted to kickstart the Junior Springboks’ attack in the U20 World Championship opener against Fiji on Saturday.

Koen has been named as one of three uncapped players in the Junior Springboks lineup for their tournament opener at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.

The son of former Springbok flyhalf Louis Koen, Liam partners scrumhalf Asad Moos in a new-look halfback pairing.

“They’ve been ok,” head coach Nhleko said about the combination.  “The one talks a lot, the other one doesn’t talk much. Asad doesn’t say much until he gets on the field, then he screams and goes mad.

“I think both of them are very cool and calm-headed players. The one thing about Liam is that he is quite studious about the game. So it’s helped him slot in. We are excited about what he can bring to the team.

“The idea is to really get the connection going between our backs and forwards, with an interlinking game, so hopefully Liam can get that out of the team.

“He’s had a bad run of injuries, but we have our fingers crossed that he can get a decent campaign under the belt.”

Meanwhile, Luca Bakkes will make his run-on debut, while utility back Likhona Finca could play an exciting cameo when he makes his debut off the bench.

Finca, a graduate of Westville High, has torn it up in his debut campaign in the Varsity Cup for the University of Johannesburg, earning the tournament’s Rookie of the Year award.

“Likhona is someone we identified about two years ago, when he was at high school at Hudson Park,” Nhleko said. “He moved on to Westville and then last year he was in matric, but he was 19, so we couldn’t get our hands on him.

“We wanted to bring him to our alignment camps, but he was busy with matric exams. His growth in the Varsity Cup has been immense.

“It was important, instead of bringing him to our environment, to expose him to rugby outside of school. That’s always a big jump for guys. He took to the Varsity Cup really well and stepped up in training. He worked on certain aspects of his game that we told him to.

“He’s got great potential. He has a great desire to learn. There’s still a way to go with certain aspects of his game, but he’s certainly exciting and it’s nice to have a guy with his versatility on the bench, because he can play both centres and on the wing.”

Nhleko explained that the Junior Springboks are hoping to get a better attacking game going in Cape Town after struggling in wet conditions in the U20 Rugby Championship in Australia.

“We couldn’t get much going from an attacking perspective. I don’t think our backs really showcased much, just because of the conditions. That’s something we really want to get going. That flow and connection between backs and forwards on attack.

“The biggest thing for us is building the connectivity between forwards and backs. What happened in the Rugby Championship was that we were just sort of carrying with our forwards, with the backs not really offering themselves and not being connected to the game.

“It was almost like we were playing with two different teams. That’s something we’ve been working really hard at correcting and driving.”

Photo: Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images

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