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England U20s defeat France in Sandy Park
England men got their Six Nations campaign back on track with a 31-19 bonus-point victory over reigning world U20 champions France at Sandy Park.
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Following last weekend’s loss to Ireland, England scored five tries to defeat the current Six Nations champions in front of 8,895 fans at the home of Exeter Chiefs.
England led 24-12 at the break with tries from Ollie Sleightholme, Tom Willis, Olly Adkins as well as a penalty try and Marcus Smith’s conversions, while France replied through Jordan Joseph and Julien Delbouis scores as well as a conversion from Louis Carbonel.
A second half penalty try extended England’s lead to 19 points but a late France saw the game end 31-19.
England started brightly and after the home pack turned over a scrum, Sleightholme went over in the corner for a first try at U20 level.
France lost Jean-Baptiste Gros to the bin after persistent scrum infringements and following further indiscretion England were awarded a penalty try taking the score to 12-0.
Joseph crashed over from close range for France’s first try of the afternoon before Willis bundled over off the back of a maul for a third England score.
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Delbouis got France back in the game, battering over shortly before the break and Carbonel’s conversion reduced the deficit to five points.
Crucially though, Adkins sealed a four-try bonus point for England on the stroke of half-time and Smith’s conversion took the score to 24-12.
England were awarded a second penalty try after a driving maul was collapsed by France as their forward dominance continued after the break.
That dominance resulted in a second yellow card for scrum infringement with Akhim Bouzhir sent to the bin.
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France were then awarded a penalty try themselves with six minutes remaining with Joel Kpoku sent to the sin bin for collapsing a maul close to England’s try line.
The visitors thought they had secured both a try scoring and a losing bonus point when they crossed the line in the final play of the match but the try was ruled out for an obstruction and the game finished 31-19 in England’s favour.
England openside flanker Aaron Hinkley was named both Sky Sports’ man-of-the-match and England fans’ man-of-the-match following an all action display.
England next face Wales on Friday 22 February at Colwyn Bay.
Steve Bates said: “It was a performance that reflected the circumstances we were in.
“We were desperately keen to win, we’ve probably got more to our game than you probably saw today but I think the win was the important thing and it gets us back on track.
“There was a bit of nervousness but the pack played extremely well but we know we can defend better and our discipline must be better. Overall though it was an important victory.
“The performance of the pack gave us a huge psychological advantage throughout, every scrum we had put them under massive pressure and that gave us huge momentum and allowed us to also score a couple of tries.
“We are right back in the tournament though and we will go on from here.”
England U20s
15. Josh Hodge (Newcastle Falcons), 14. Ollie Sleightholme (Northampton Saints), 13. Ollie Lawrence (Worcester Warriors), 12. Cameron Redpath (Sale Sharks), 11. Arron Reed (Sale Sharks), 10. Marcus Smith (Harlequins), 9. Sam Maunder (Exeter Chiefs), 1. Olly Adkins (Gloucester), 2. Nic Dolly (Sale Sharks), 3. Marcus Street (Exeter Chiefs), 4. Joel Kpoku (Saracens), 5. Alex Coles (Northampton Saints), 6. Ted Hill (Worcester Warriors), 7. Aaron Hinkley (Gloucester), 8. Tom Willis (Wasps)
Replacements:
16. Ben Atkins (London Irish), 17. Kai Owen (Worcester Warriors), 18. Joe Heyes (Leicester Tigers), 19. James Scott (Worcester Warriors), 20. Rusiate Tuima (Exeter Chiefs), 21. Ollie Fox (Yorkshire Carnegie), 22. Tom Hardwick (Leicester Tigers), 23. Tom de Glanville (Bath Rugby).
Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
26 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
26 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
26 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
26 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
26 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to comments