Wales U20 v Italy U20

First topic message reminder :

Well, here's the Wales team, there's 11 changes from the side that got thumped by the BB's on Tuesday:

Wales U20: Ross Jones (Ospreys / Bridgend); Liam Williams (Llanelli), Owen Williams (Blues / Cardiff), Rheon James (Scarlets / Carmarthen Quins), Eli Walker (Ospreys / Swansea); Matthew Morgan (Ospreys / Swansea), Jonathan Evans (Dragons / Newport); Lewis Smout (Blues / Pontypridd), Kirby Myhill (Scarlets / Llanelli), Will Taylor (Ospreys / Swansea), Macauley Cook (capt, Blues / Cardiff), Cory Hill (Blues / Pontypridd), Luke Hamilton (Blues / Glamorgan Wanderers), Thomas Young (Blues / Cardiff), Ben Thomas (Ospreys / Bridgend).

Replacements: Jamie Sollis (Dragons / Cross Keys), Rhodri Jones (Scarlets / Llanelli), Owen Sheppeard (Blues / Pontypridd), Edward Siggery (London Irish), Lewis Jones (Blues / Pontypridd), Steve Shingler (London Irish), Iolo Evans (Scarlets / Llanelli).

K.O is at 17:10 today.

Will be interesting to see what effect that horrific loss has on the team. From a personal perspective I'm interested to see how Rheon James cones in the centre, and I hope our pack can provide us with more protection at the breakdown in this match.

AlynDavies wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:I would like to see Wales push harder in this tournament, allowing all the best players qualified to play. I know that there was an WRU sanctioned concept of focusing efforts on next years JRWC rather than this, hense the young and inexperienced squad we have.

I guess the WRU are looking at a bigger picture in their eyes. THough I feel their are arguments that swing for both sides. I think Players like George North and Tom Prydie would definitely benefit from playing in this tournament.

In fact I would say that the IRB were probably wrong to make this U20's and not keep the old system. The decision was made due to the number of Under 21s involved in modern senior Rugby. It would be a much stronger tournament for it.

Or maybe an idea would be to keep the Under 20s Junior RWC but possibly have an Under 23s RWC or an A-Team RWC ? ? ?

I understand your argument but this season has exceptional ciurcumstances.
Firstly it's the off season now and secondly many of our best young players will be required to play in the Magners league for 2+ months next season as a result of Wales's players being on World Cup duty. It would be madness to play these kids in a World Cup, without having a rest then expect them to hold their own in the Magners league. Players are limited to how many games they can play in a season and all players MUST have 10 weeks off before they can play again under IRB rules.
North is going to be in the Wales team in the World Cup so if we want him to come to the main event he cant come to the U20 World Cup. Prydie has a bad injury which ruled him out for 8 months. The Ospreys have lost a lot of players so most of their young players will be needed for the Magners league, so again to play them in this world cup and make them unavailable for the start of next season is madness, especially as they will get the oppertunity for first team rugby and a much better chance to develop.

AD

I don't have an argument, I have what I would prefer to see... ! No argument involved.

Considering the amount of fuss this stupid game with the BABs has caused, not in the press which is irrelevant, and not with the fans who are irrelevant too, but within the WRU, I am now very concerned.

There are investigations going ahead and money and task masters being employed to find out why Wales under 20s lost so badly.

The answers are simple and obvious and I am now worried that the investigations and instigations will cause unnecessary upheaval within the under 20s set up.

Kiwireddevil wrote:Maesteg, an A team RWC (maybe held 2 years off from the RWC - something for non-Lions tourists from the UK/Ireland perhaps) would be pretty good. Maybe allowing tier 2 unions to send full (or near-full) international squads would help their development too - a Churchill Cup writ large.

Thats actaully an excellent idea.

After all, the tours on the Lions tours are normally very weak - like the Wales one to North America, and hardly any first team players are selected (or are available)

So why not scrap 1st team tours in Lions years and put the rest of the squad in as an A team (even Wales could field one without the drain of the Wales squad) and compete in an A WC - It would probably be more interesting than the normal tours to 2nd tier nations, although I dont know how it would work with countries like Japan, Canada etc - would they play their A team? Or would it be like the churchill cup (only larger) and allow Japan, Canada, USA etc to play their first team (which would still help them develop).

wales606 wrote:

Kiwireddevil wrote:Maesteg, an A team RWC (maybe held 2 years off from the RWC - something for non-Lions tourists from the UK/Ireland perhaps) would be pretty good. Maybe allowing tier 2 unions to send full (or near-full) international squads would help their development too - a Churchill Cup writ large.

Thats actaully an excellent idea.

After all, the tours on the Lions tours are normally very weak - like the Wales one to North America, and hardly any first team players are selected (or are available)

So why not scrap 1st team tours in Lions years and put the rest of the squad in as an A team (even Wales could field one without the drain of the Wales squad) and compete in an A WC - It would probably be more interesting than the normal tours to 2nd tier nations, although I dont know how it would work with countries like Japan, Canada etc - would they play their A team? Or would it be like the churchill cup (only larger) and allow Japan, Canada, USA etc to play their first team (which would still help them develop).

Maybe add a rule that only a small number, let's say for example three, players can be over the age of thirty.

A tournament designed to help build competitive depth in squads and to build the lower ranked nations profile. I guess the under 20/sevens style format where if you don't qualify for the semis you enter the plate or bowl competition.

Most of these things will be up for discussion soon apprently. England want a tournament for A teams to bridge the gap between the U20 and the full side. they have approched Wales, Scotland and Italy to join England, Ireland and France in fielding A sides during the 6 Nations tournements.
Wales arent fussed due to the extra cost they would incur from renting the players off their regions while the regions are competing in the LV cup against English teams..

I'm just wondering if they don't agree a compramise of having a mini European tournament while the main teams will be on tour in June? To replace the Churchill Cup.
This could also be the birth of a future European Cup like the football one.

If Wales, England, France and Ireland hosted a pool of 4 teams each. Then included full sides from the 6 Nations B and C competitions. Then after playing 3 pool games they could go into Semi finals based on their standings then into a Cup, Shield, plate and Bowl competition, so everyone plays 5 games. This will more or less equal the 4 weeks the teams will be touring for. IRB World Ranking in brackets after country.

Pot 1 (host nations)
Ireland A (4), England A (5), France A (6), Wales A (7)

Pot 2 - strongest teams outside host nations.
Scotland A (9), Italy A (12), Georgia (14), Romania (18)

Pot 3
Russia (19), Portugal (20), Spain (23), Belgium (25)

Pot 4
Moldova (29), Czech (31), Ukraine (33), Poland (34)

If these teams were drawn at random you could have pools like:

Pool 1:
Wales A (pot 1)
Italy A (pot 2)
Russia (pot 3)
Czech (pot 4)

Pool 2:
England A
Romania
Portugal
Moldova

Pool 3:
Ireland A
Georgia
Spain
Ukraine

Pool 4:
France A
Scotland A
Belgium
Poland

All these teams play each other once for 3 games each. then after it's over take the top team in each pool and put them into Semi Finals:

Cup competition
Wales A (Pool 1 winner) VS England A (Pool 2 winner)
Ireland A (Pool 3 winner) VS France A (Pool 4 winner)

The winners of the semi finals will go onto compete in the finals the losers go into a 3/4 play off place.

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The runners up (2nd placed teams) in the pool games will play in a Plate competition.

Italy A (Pool 1 runner up) Vs Romania (Pool 2 runner up)
Georgia (Pool 3 runner up) Vs Scotland A (Pool 3 runner up)

he winners of the semi finals will go onto comepete in the finals the losers go into a 3/4 play off place.

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The 3rd placed Pool teams will compete in a Shield competition and the 4th placed teams will compete in a Bowl competiton.
at the end every country will get a ranking from 1 to 16 and would of played 5 games each.

Interesting, do you have a link to the story?

maestegmafia wrote:Interesting, do you have a link to the story?

Front page of todays "The Rugby Paper" (Welsh edition) in your local news agents now!
Cointains the story about English approching Wales, Italy and Scotland appearing in a new A team 6 Nations.

The rest of my post with regards to the European competition is simply speculation on my part because Wales wont want to rent the players off the regions when their playing in the LV game during the 6 nations. It simply seems a good compramise to keep everyone happy.
The IRB might help with funding if it helps tier 2 nations and in the future we will no doubt have a European cup of some sort. While England want an A team competition, it seems to work for me anyway.

Fair comments and some of it is explained so I'm glad I raised the issue in a such a manner.

The main point coming through seems to be that the focus on the u20's wasn't given the highest priority it could have been with other scheduling and tournaments around it.

I think thats a glaring mistake. We took players like Sopoaga out of the superxv at the tough end of the season to focus on this and I believe sent our very best team.

Most of these kids only get one shot at the International level and given its a yearly event it is critical that the tournament is used as a yardstick for the country's future. The talk about players needing a IRN enforced rest and using this to provide it and working around the Magners and so on just smells of the typical money/ club before country first syndrome you've got going on up there.

You've got so many tournaments going on here there and everywhere you've allowed it to water down the quality of rugby you turn out and it shows when your teams step onto the park against the SH teams and particularly ours.

Opinion anyway. I havnt done a full analysis as that would take too long and its not me that should be doing it anyway. The mixture of ideas and comments here suggest its still all over the place.

A couple of points ,the team rotation rule states every squad member must get start.Does it state how long they have to be on the field?
Make the starting side weaker if you must,but have a strong bench in case of problems.
In the past Junior All Blacks/Maori or Junior Boks and Australia A sides don`t they or did`nt they meet full strength tier2 sides in these tournaments.
Was the recent Churchill Cup an all A team affair,or were teams like Canada
of the full strength sides.
The idea of the big 8 A sides playing and touring against full strength tier 2 sides is sensible.They may have a realistic chance of winning more matches.
Which would surely be good for morale of these sides.

The rotation rule is a good one and clearly depth is important. As well as game time do they have to take a set number of players? is it better to have 30 or 25 in other words where your 5 arent so good.

You're right Alan, 11 changes all at once is a bit much. I think some of the number ones came on but all had been lost by then.

So we play Oz again. We seem to do better against them in these than the NH sides looking at last years results...

Don't know what the fuss is all about.
Wales put out a weaker than possible team against a NZ team and got a hiding.
Happened before.

Yep. That's about the guts of it. Whens the semi's on. Must check. NH vs SH final this time too with France and England in the other half...

If you accept the premise that the Baby Blacks are usually a powerful side
and that they would probably win anyway.That the match was a damage limitation exercise for Wales.
That they wanted there strongest side to play the winnable matches that
is understandable.
But under the rules it would make sense to try for a reasonable score line say
42-10 or similar as in 2010.
That way they would have had a realistic shot at a Semi-Final place,instead of going for some minor silverware.