2023 World Rugby U20 Championship Explained

The 2023 World Rugby U20 Championship was the 13th edition of the premier age-grade rugby union competition. The tournament is hosted in South Africa for the second time, previously being held in 2012.^[1]

The 2023 under 20 competition (alongside the Trophy) was the first global U20 competition held since 2019, with the 2020 edition, scheduled to be held in Italy, cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing instability in the world following the pandemic delaying the return of the competition. There were however various regional U20 competitions with the Six Nations Under 20s Championship and Oceania Rugby Under 20 Championship continuing to take place.

Venues

Athlone	Stellenbosch	Paarl
Athlone Stadium	Danie Craven Stadium	Paarl Gimnasium
Capacity: 34,000	Capacity: 16,000	Capacity: 2,000

Teams

The teams that participated in the tournament are listed in the table below, with a summary of their previous best results at the World Rugby Under 20 Championship included.

Team		Result (2019)	Best Result
	12	4th	Third place (2016)
	12	2nd	Runners-up (2010, 2019)
	12	5th	Champions (2013, 2014, 2016)
	8	11th	Sixth place (2011)
	12	1st	Champions (2018, 2019)
	4	10th	Ninth place (2018)
	12	8th	Runners-up (2016)
	10	9th	Eighth place (2017, 2018)
	5	—	Tenth place (2015)
	12	7th	Champions (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2017)
	12	3rd	Champions (2012)
	12	6th	Runners-up (2013)

Match officials

The following officials were named for the tournament, with an official panel of 10 referees designated to oversee the game. Assistant Referees for the pool stage were local South African referees, whilst in a World Rugby first, a TMO bunker was trialled whereby the Television Match Official focussed on the game, and a Split Screen Operator focussed on any yellow cards needing an upgrade to a red card.

Referees

• Ben Breakspear (Wales)
• Eoghan Cross (Ireland)
• Hollie Davidson (Scotland)
• Morné Ferreira (South Africa)
• Reuben Keane (Australia)
• Angus Mabey (New Zealand)
• Takehito Namekawa (Japan)
• Luc Ramos (France)
• Damian Schneider (Argentina)
• Anthony Woodthorpe (England)

Assistant Referees

• Christopher Allison (South Africa)
• Aimee Barrett-Theron (South Africa)
• Griffin Colby (South Africa)
• Stephan Geldenhuys (South Africa)
• AJ Jacobs (South Africa)
• Phumzile Mbewu (South Africa)
• Dylen November (South Africa)

Television match officials / Split Screen Operator

• Ben Blain (Scotland)
• Brett Cronan (Australia)
• Tom Foley (England)
• Quinton Immelman (South Africa)
• Marius Jonker (South Africa)
• Matteo Liperini (Italy)
• Joy Neville (Ireland)
• Brendon Pickerill (New Zealand)
• Ian Tempest (England)
• Ben Whitehouse (Wales)
• Marius van der Westhuizen (South Africa)

Pool stage

width=25%	Pool A	width=25%	Pool B	width=25%	Pool C

Pool A

Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	−/+	TF	TA	BP	Pts
	3	3	0	0	153	45	+108	22	7	3	15
	3	2	0	1	103	80	+23	16	12	2	10
	3	1	0	2	86	89	–3	13	13	3	7
	3	0	0	3	50	178	–128	8	27	0	0

Pool B

Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	−/+	TF	TA	BP	Pts
	3	2	1	0	111	71	+40	17	10	3	13
	3	1	2	0	109	63	+46	15	10	2	10
	3	1	1	1	78	89	–11	11	11	1	7
	3	0	0	3	71	146	–75	10	22	2	2

Pool C

Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	−/+	TF	TA	BP	Pts
	3	2	0	1	83	73	+10	10	8	1	9
	3	2	0	1	73	50	+23	9	5	1	9
	3	1	0	2	59	59	0	7	7	1	5
	3	1	0	2	66	99	–33	8	14	1	5

Pool stage standings

Seedings for the knockout stage based on results from the pool stage:.^[2]

width=25		width=165	Team	width=25	Pool	width=25		width=28		width=25
Finals
1			3	+108	15
2			3	+40	13
3			3	+10	9
4			3	+46	10
5–8th place play-offs
5			3	+23	10
6			3	+23	9
7			3	−3	7
8			3	−11	7
9–12th place play-offs
9			3	0	5
10			3	−33	5
11			3	–75	2
12			3	−128	0

Knockout stage

9–12th place play-offs

9th place

5–8th place play-offs

5th place

Finals

Final

Final placings

width=25		width=165	Team	width=25		width=25		width=25		width=25		width=25		width=25		width=30		width=25		width=25
1		5	5	0	0	255	90	+165	36	13
2		5	3	1	1	156	133	+23	23	19
3		5	3	0	2	117	119	–2	12	13
4		5	1	2	2	155	137	18	21	20
5–8th place play-offs
5		5	3	1	1	179	157	+22	27	21
6		5	2	0	3	159	167	−8	24	25
7		5	3	0	2	188	149	+39	28	23
8		5	2	0	3	120	121	−1	16	18
9–12th place play-offs
9		5	3	0	2	147	101	+46	20	10
10		5	1	0	4	134	215	−81	19	33
11		5	2	0	3	137	167	−30	19	23
12		5	0	0	5	97	268	−171	14	41

See also

• 2023 World Rugby U20 Trophy

External links

• World Rugby U20 Championship 2023 - Official Website

Notes and References

1. World Rugby U20 tournaments return to Africa in 2023 . World Rugby . 26 January 2023 . 26 January 2023 .
2. News: South Africa leave it late to deny Georgia an historic semi-final place at the U20 Championship . World Rugby . 4 July 2023 . 5 July 2023. The 2023 World Rugby U20 Championship tournament rules don't appear to have been published, but the seeding is consistent with the tournament rules for the 2019 World Rugby Under 20 Championship.