england v wales under20

Always enjoy watching the under 20's, england started strongly but wales certainly getting involved and dominating the scrum early on.

england 17-0 wales

england number 8 (exeter lad) broken the line 3 times and caused all sorts problems for welsh defence.

Wales need to to use an utterly dominant scrum to gain a foot hold

Good skills from the forwards generally.  I hope the scrum issue is that they're focusing on the ball skills at the moment (or the Welsh scrum is just very strong). That can be worked on in the future. Getting the instincts right is more important.

3rd try. Nice variety

24-0 would much prefer to see a closer contest, hopefully wales can stem the tide

oh dear

Wales have fallen off way too many tackles. Their scrum is far better than ours, everything else, less so. Wales are far better than this, but the encouraging thing for me is that I think there is plenty of room for us to improve still. Our backs are very deep and only the SH and Tomkins look that incisive.

Tompkins. Tomkins is the ex-league player (sorry couldn't help myself, Beshocked has corrected loads of people the other way when they write Tompkins instead of Tomkins ).

Hopefully Wales will come out firing and make it into a contest.

Getting a right royal stuffing.England better all over the park.We are not at the races!

We're being well beaten at the scrum

Typical, missed the first half. It will all go to Poopie now.

It's not quite clicking for Wales. This is a relatively new combination for the team isn't it? Hopefully that's it. With the JWC every year the 6N isn't as important as the main one. It's really useful development competition for the JWC

Our scrum in fairness is ok.We have no intensity in our play whilst England have loads both in attack and defence.

Cumbrian wrote:Typical, missed the first half.  It will all go to Poopie now.

Can you miss the second then as well?   

Are England maybe being hampered by having such a small hooker? Wilson is normally a good scrummager.

Itoje, Thacker, Jones and Conlon really shone up front for England in the first half. The England lads are just more clinical than their Welsh counter parts.

The Welsh have picked a big tight five and the scrum is showing that, that tactic is working. Unfortunately for them the rest of the team can't catch, the number of handling errors was woeful. The Welsh backrow took a kicking as well.

You would say that. Nice try for your guy there. Edit: directed at Cumbrian not Sam

G'wan Zach! Do it for the Falcons!

poor tackling surely but what a finish!

6 missed tackles on the 14 who scores from his own 22!Blwdi embarrassing.Boy did well but come on!!!!

Score and a little match summary for us stuck at work please?

Thacker is small, compared to his props, i thought that too about the balance being wrong in the front row

eng 50-0 wales

wales scrum has been dominant but not a lot else to say

The passing and running angles from England is brilliant, a real breath of fresh air.

score?

have england scored a try?

50-0 with conversion to come (out wide, edit: missed). England outplaying Wales in every aspects except the scrum. Had a couple of poor line outs recently as well.

Now there is no way I would give that as a yellow. The legs should be irrelevant. the angle of the body is what is important. He was always landing on his back. But I suppose it only takes a slight slip to be the head/neck and the IRB are trying to stamp it out. Good offload though

This scrum should be interesting considering the substitution.

Well this means the senior side si going to whoop wales sunday

How is thacker playing?

 Really like him, just size is a bit of a concern.

HammerofThunor wrote:Tompkins. Tomkins is the ex-league player (sorry couldn't help myself, Beshocked has corrected loads of people the other way when they write Tompkins instead of Tomkins ).

Hopefully Wales will come out firing and make it into a contest.

Ah, sorry! An easy mistake, until you see them play  

This is a demolition

60:0.

Some shocking tackling from Wales. Just the technique is terrible.

its funny im disappointed it so one sided tonight but cant imagine id feel disappointed with this score line on sunday..  

I'm not sure how it can't be a try?

Dunno Cumbrian, Thacker hooking the ball back stopped us losing a lot of those scrums in the first half. The two props looked to really struggle after the initial hit.

Thacker got subbed on 50 mins. Was everywhere in the first half, grabbed two tries, good support work but I'd liked to see him coming round the corner for the carry a little more. He's certainly small but he was getting over the gainline and breaking tackles.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Dunno Cumbrian, Thacker hooking the ball back stopped us losing a lot of those scrums in the first half. The two props looked to really struggle after the initial hit.

Thacker got subbed on 50 mins. Was everywhere in the first half, grabbed two tries, good support work but I'd liked to see him coming round the corner for the carry a little more. He's certainly small but he was getting over the gainline and breaking tackles.

Aye, I missed the first half, could only go with what I saw in the second. Saw the highlights of the tries and he looks good in open play. I just find it odd to see Wilson get beaten up in the scrum so.

Seems ridiculously harsh to me, took the man as he was getting the ball.

knock on?

Sympathy card there I think

I hate to say it but I agree with Morris. Penalty try is a terrible call (edit: I meant NOT a terrible call) I suppose but I don't think that was cynical at all.

Poor decision at the end. Wales didn't deserve to score 7.

It's a long time since I've seen such a one sided affair. Wales looked unfit and totally unprepared for the physicality and intensity of performance. England were excellent and those young lads can be very proud - particularly with the second half when it would have been easy to relax.

England was deffo the better team tonight. They looked a lot stronger and a lot fitter than Wales.

I hope this is the score for this sunday with the senior team. Cannot see it though.

Wow some scoreline. U20 rugby is very unpredictable!

Wow
well scrum is a very bog factor of a rugby game but England proved that it can be counter acted. The English were just phenomenal you can't take anything away from them.
Our defense was not short of abysmal absolutely pathetic.
Very disappointed in both second rows and and back row, Benjamin had a shocker

Why we don't use Dixon or Hughes enough is beyond me, when they had the Ball we had a bit more about us. But ffs they all need a kick up the @rse. They are much better than that but it just isn't good enough. They don;t look like a team and i think Wilsons omission has a big factor in that.

Okay lads, if you had to pick a player who you reckon will go on and make it to the senior international side, who would you pick?

Gus Jones

Conlon

Itjo ( spelling)

To be honest on that performance last night it would be hard to say any one would not make the step up. The whole team from 1-15 should get some recognition in my opinion.

Joel Conlon looked an absolute beast but aside from his pace and power it was the nice lines he cut at speed that burst him through gaps, he showed nice hands to offload and his work rate in defence was very good. Basically what England could do with on the bench tomorrow. He's just the sort of backrower we need coming through. Itoje looks to be another athletic lock in the Lawes mold but with a better skill set (or a skill set). Gus Jones looked like an intelligent scrapper and got around the park in support brilliantly (reflected in his haul of tries). Thacker well I'm a fan anyway he's a modern hooker but threw accurately all night and was another backrow in the loose, certainly more powerful than he looks.

Cumbrian, in the first half the Welsh pack were able to just set lower and then build up the pressure and shove us back. On the engage it was equal but they exerted pressure after that normally after the ball was already at the back of our scrum. Wales were a touch lucky as their scrum half was feeding crooked as the hooker couldn't seem to hook, they changed him to good effect for the second half.

Fair enough Sam.

I'm always a bit cautious about picking out ginger no.8 as being stars of the future after bigging up Hugo Ellis. Actually I am cautious about no.8s in general after bigging up Alex Gray and watching him plummet off the radar. I think the challenge that Conlon will have is developing his power game enough for senior rugby. He's clearly got an excellent rugby brain but if he gets driven back in the tackle every time he will struggle. Mind you he seems more compact and powerful that the guys I quoted did at the the same stage of their careers.

Maro Itoje is the one I would pick out too. I agree with the comparison with Lawes regarding his athleticism, but he seems to have been picked out as a lineout leader for a long time too. His carrying game seems to be very strong too, something that Lawes sometimes struggles with IMO. I've read that Bomber is a fan already so I reckon when he starts getting some game time at Sarries he will get a Saxons call up in shrt rder.

Cumbrian wrote:Fair enough Sam.

I'm always a bit cautious about picking out ginger no.8 as being stars of the future after bigging up Hugo Ellis.  Actually I am cautious about no.8s in general after bigging up Alex Gray and watching him plummet off the radar.  I think the challenge that Conlon will have is developing his power game enough for senior rugby.  He's clearly got an excellent rugby brain but if he gets driven back in the tackle every time he will struggle.  Mind you he seems more compact and powerful that the guys I quoted did at the the same stage of their careers.

Maro Itoje is the one I would pick out too.  I agree with the comparison with Lawes regarding his athleticism,  but he seems to have been picked out as a lineout leader for a long time too.  His carrying game seems to be very strong too, something that Lawes sometimes struggles with IMO.  I've read that Bomber is a fan already so I reckon when he starts getting some game time at Sarries he will get a Saxons call up in shrt rder.

For me the players that make it are, sadly, normally the biggest lumps. You just can't know how players will physically develop, and someone like Conlon is not massive, and certainly not big enough for a Prem level 8. I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Sisi made it before Conlon, despite being slower with a far more limited skill set, just because he's big enough to deal with the physicality.

Itoje looks excellent, I hope he doesn't fall between two stools of lock and back-row as he's 6 foot 5. He's pretty lean so if he doesn't get any taller I'd expect him to shift to 6. Could be superb there.

Cumbrian wrote:Okay lads,  if you had to pick a player who you reckon will go on and make it to the senior international side, who would you pick?

Scott Wilson to be the first capped - but sadly for us it will be Scotland in the summer.

LondonTiger wrote:

Cumbrian wrote:Okay lads,  if you had to pick a player who you reckon will go on and make it to the senior international side, who would you pick?

Scott Wilson to be the first capped - but sadly for us it will be Scotland in the summer.

No, he's played for the Saxons so he is all ours now.

I thought he was going to play for Scotland too but he closed that route by accepting an 'A' cap.

Aha.

Clever Bomber. Must be the Scottish part of him being sneaky