The World Rugby U20 Championship Final gets underway this evening in Cape Town, as England take on France with the title on the line. The last time England won the age-group honour was back in 2016, when the likes of England capped wing Max Malins and centre Joe Marchant tore up the turf at U20s level.
England U20s head coach Mark Mapletoft believes that his side had high expectations upon themseleves, as they entered the tournament as the U20 Six Nations champions. However, regardless of any prior accomplishments, Mapletoft is delighted in how his side has raised their standards in South Africa, and booked themselves a place in the final by defeating Ireland 31-20 earlier this week.
“There’s 12 teams that come out here, only one team can emerge victorious. Everybody else has varying degrees of success or failure, depending on what their expectations are when they come in. So, look, our expectations, were probably lvery high. We won the Six Nations, but New Zealand won the Rugby Championship, so I guess their expectations were pretty high.
“Ireland just got pipped to the Six Nations, their expectations are probably high. France are the three time defending (U20 World Championship) champions, so I’m guessing their expectations are pretty high. So we can all have high expectations. But ultimately, you know, only two teams can make the final and only one team can win it.
“So we’re really pleased with what we’ve done to this point. We’ve recognised every game that we’ve needed to raise our standards, and we’ve done that a lot. But there are also times where, we could have done better. I guess ultimately, on Friday, if you can put it all together, the performance will look after itself.”
England and Ireland put on an all-time classic U20s Test match in the semi-final, with the high-octane action getting underway from the word ‘go’. Ireland were over to score against the soon to be finalists after just one minute of play, as England failed to catch or clear the initial kick off. Mapletoft chalked this error off as a key area of improvement, when England come up against France at the DHL Stadium later today.
“That clearly wasn’t what we planned for. We certainly didn’t plan to drop the restart. We certainly didn’t plan to kick the ball off into our 22. And we clearly didn’t plan to miss read what Ireland we’re doing. But that sport isn’t it, that’s that’s a team sport. That’s that’s an invasion game where things don’t always go to plan. It’s how you react to that. That’s the most important thing.
“Whilst the first half was very much a bit of a too and fro, neither team could really get two scores away from the opposition. I thought the way that we addressed halftime and particularly Finn (Carnduff) in the leadership group. I thought the way they did that, and came out and really put the squeeze on Ireland in the second half.
“I’ve said this before, they (Ireland) we’re a really good side, you know, they’re well coached, they presented lots of different challenges. To almost limit them to probably one fleeting glimpse midway through that second half, otherwise, I thought we were totally dominant.
“It gives a lot of credit to the lads in terms of how they deal with problems on the hoof. France are a great side, you don’t win three junior World Cups if you’re no good. And they’ll present a different challenges for us. In a short week, we’ve prepared as best as we can. And then it’s a bit like every other game. We’ve got to get out there, do our best and react to what happens. But be proactive, of course, but then also react to what’s going on.”
Leicester Tigers lock Finn Carnduff is primed and ready to lead his side out, as the second row will captain England U20s in the final against France. The lock has recently gone viral across rugby social media, as his impassioned team-talk ahead of the semi-final win against Ireland shows the intensity of his leadership, and how he manages to generate the best performances out of his players.
“The obviously is massively exciting.” Finn Carnduff said to RUCK in a recent England U20s press conference. “For a lot of boys this is probably the biggest game of their career so far. So it’s a great opportunity for us to play in what we hope to be quite a packed out DHL Stadium against a very good French team.’
“But we’ve tried to not get too caught up in the moment. I think as soon as we start worrying about what Friday looks like so early on in the week, it can distract you from what you’ve got to get done.
“We’ve tried to keep preparations pretty similar. Because we’ve had a winning formula, and we didn’t want to change it too much. So yeah, the boys are excited, but not much has changed really.”