Rugby: NZ to meet England in junior final

New Zealand and England will meet again in the final of the under-20 rugby junior world championship after beating Australia and South Africa respectively last night.

After breezing through their pool matches, New Zealand struck tougher opposition in Australia at Tokyo's Prince Chichubi Stadium.

They were held to 7-7 at halftime, with a try to Hurricanes wing Zac Guildford, but a second try to Guildford, and others from second five-eighth Shaun Treeby and fullback Robbie Robinson helped push the final score to 31-17.

New Zealand coach Dave Rennie said the forwards at times struggled to win quality ball, but when they did the backs capitalised.

"I think it was a pretty good effort from our backline, we certainly found a lot of space and were very accurate in what we did and used the ball well," he said.

Rennie said while the score was tight for much of the match, New Zealand had good pressure on the Australians from the start.

"We just didn't turn that pressure into points ... in the second half there was probably a bit more patience and we scored some points reasonably quickly."

In the other semifinal England rallied to beat South Africa 40-21 after being down 9-11 at halftime.

Rennie said it appeared all his players had come through last night's match without injury, but he would assess the opponents before selecting a team for the final on Sunday.

He said England were a big, dominant side who used the ball well, and was on the mark when predicting at half time as he watched the match that they would be too strong for the South Africans.

England were unable to score a try against New Zealand when the teams met in the final of the same tournament in Wales last year, losing 3-38.

- NZPA