Rugby: NZ U-20s ring the changes

Akira Ioane. Photo / Getty

The coaching staff have rung the changes for New Zealand's crucial match against Ireland in tomorrow morning's World Rugby Under 20 Championship in Italy.

There are no less than 12 changes to the starting 15 who narrowly defeated Argentina last weekend.

Coach Scott Robertson is urging his team to work on their mental skills for their final pool game.

"We definitely need to be a lot smarter," he said. "We've assessed how we played at the weekend and improved our game understanding. Argentina slowed our game down quite a lot. They stopped us playing by a lot of different means and we have to be much smarter in the way we deal with that.

"They were very clear in the way they wanted to stop us playing, obviously with mauls, keeping the ball tight, playing one-two ball football, and just keeping to the short side.

We didn't deal with it that well, but fortunately we got through with the win."

New Zealand, along with England, South Africa and Australia, are all on 10 points at this stage of the tournament, and Ireland, who are also unbeaten, trail with eight.

Competition for the top four is very tight.

"A do or die quarter-final against Ireland waits for us, so winner takes all," said Robertson.

"Our focus is to finish on top with the best for and against record. There's only six points between the top three teams at the moment, including us."

England currently has a points difference of 66, New Zealand has 61 with South Africa just behind on 60.

"We watched Ireland in the Six Nations and in their last two pool games and they haven't changed too much. They're very similar to Scotland in a lot of ways. They love the maul, they're really good around their attack strategy and counter-attack.

"This game's a priority and our intention is hopefully to create enough forward thrust to finish fine, while respecting Ireland in our preparation and winning the match. The opportunity is there to score as many as we can, but the best thing is to win it!

"We'll have to make sure we get some really good top quality ball off our set-piece to create opportunities for our backs, but more importantly if we can keep our penalty count down, we'll keep it away from any set-piece drives and protect our goal line.

"We've picked a strong line-up which can get us the result we need to finish at the top. Otere Black comes in at 10, along with Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi at nine, and we've some solid leadership with Atu Moli to start at captain and Jack Goodhue as our vice-captain," he added.

Fresh off the plane, midfielder Anton Lienert-Brown will arrive to watch on the sidelines at Viadana's Stadio Luigi Zaffanella, after being released from the Chiefs. He has replaced Mitch Karpik, who picked up an ankle injury during the game against Argentina.

Nathaniel Apa shifts from the wing to second five, having played much of his school rugby for Kelston Boys' High First XV in the midfield. Blake Gibson shifts into the No 7 jersey, in which he too has played a lot of rugby.

Kickoff is at 6.30am NZT. The semifinals will take place in Viadana and Calvisano on Monday (Tuesday am, NZST).

The team is: Luteru Laulala, Tevita Li, Jack Goodhue, Nathaniel Apa, Vince Aso, Otere Black, Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi, Akira Ioane, Blake Gibson, James Blackwell, Hamish Dalzell, Josh Goodhue, Atu Moli (c), Liam Polwart, Isi Tu'ungafasi
Reserves: Ricky Riccitelli, Aidan Ross, Tau Koloamatangi, Mitch Dunshea, Henry Stowers, Harrison Levien, TJ Faiane, Mitch Hunt