Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

New Zealand lead the way after competitive day one of U20 Championship

New Zealand lead the way after a competitive opening day at the World Rugby U20 Championship 2018.

ADVERTISEMENT

New Zealand kicked off the defence of their World Rugby U20 Championship title with a ruthless 11-try 67-0 defeat of Japan on a day of twists and turns in France on Wednesday.

The six-time champions were relentless from the outset with Will Tucker racing over with only 50 seconds on the clock and he was followed over the line by Leicester Faingaanuku, who grabbed a brace either side of All Blacks Sevens star Vilimoni Koroi’s effort to wrap up the bonus point inside 18 minutes.

Centre Bailyn Sullivan showed off his pace with a 75-metre scamper to score a try from a kickoff shortly after.

Captain Tom Christie had the final say of the first half as he managed to ground the ball despite a desperate tackle by the Japanese to send his side in 38-0 at half-time.

Winger Jamie Spowart, who had had a try disallowed in the first half, went on to score a hat-trick in the second as New Zealand sent out a powerful message to their competition.

“We’re really happy with how we performed, it was an amazing game to have up first because Japan really challenged us,” New Zealand captain Tom Christie said.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Maybe the score doesn’t reflect that but they competed really hard at the breakdown and their maul was hard to stop. We’ll go back to the drawing board and have a look at the details and what we want to work on, and really focus on us.”

Continue reading below

Video Spacer

The 2018 edition of the premier age-grade tournament is predicted to be the most competitive yet and the opening day lived up to that expectation with four matches decided by less than seven points.

South Africa were forced to dig deep to edge past an impressive Georgia 33-27 before hosts France came from 12 points down to beat Ireland 26-24 in the other Pool C match in Perpignan.

ADVERTISEMENT

The two matches in Béziers were equally tight affairs. First Italy capitalised on a late Scotland yellow card to snatch a 27-26 victory thanks to Niccolo Taddia’s try at the death, before Wales avenged their 2017 loss to Australia with a 26-21 victory.

Welshman Cai Evans, the son of World Rugby Hall of Fame inductee Ieuan Evans, converted tries from centre Ioan Nicholas and replacement winger Joe Goodchild as well kicking four penalties for a 16-point haul on the night.

England, the 2017 runners-up, had to withstand a strong first-half performance by Argentina in the first match in Narbonne before coming through to win 39-18.

Play resumes June 3.

In other news:

Video Spacer

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

A
AM 43 minutes ago
'Freelancer' Izaia Perese shows the need for true inclusivity in Australian rugby

That's Cron's job though. Australia has had one of the most penalised scrums in international rugby for a long time. Just look at the scrum win loss percentage and scrum penalties. That is your evidence. AA has been the starter during that period. Pretty simple analysis. That Australia has had a poor scrum for a long time is hardly news. If bell and thor are not on the field they are woeful. So you are just plain wrong. They have very little time for the lions so doing the same old things that dont work is not going to get them there.


Ainsley is better than our next best tighthead options and has been playing well at scrum time for Lyon in the most competitive comp in the world. Superstar player? No. But better than the next best options. So that is a good enough guide. The scrummaging in the Prem is pretty good too so there is Sio's proof. Same analysis for him. Certainly better in both cases than Super, where the brumbies had the worst win loss and scrum pen in Super. Who plays there? Ohh yes... And the level of scrummaging in Super is well below the URC, prem and France with the SA teams out.


Nongorr is truly woeful. He's 130kg and gets shoved about. That just should not be happening at that weight for a specialist prop who has always played rugby cf pone with leauge. He has had enough time to develop at 23. You'd be better off with Pone who is at least good around the field for the moment and sending Nongorr on exchange to France or England to see if they can improve him with better coaching as happened with Skelton and Meafou. He isn't going to develop in time in super if he has it at all.


Latu is a better scrummaging hooker than BPA and Nasser. and he's the best aussie player over the ball at ruck time. McReight's super jackling percentage hasnt converted to international level but latu consistently does it at heniken level, which is similar to test level in the big games. With good coaching at La Rochelle he's much improved though still has the odd shocker. He should start the November games.

72 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ Would a Springboks B team really conquer the world? Would a Springboks B team really conquer the world?
Search