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The 'silver lining' Wales have taken from latest U20s loss to France

Two Wales players jostle for possession versus France on Tuesday (Photo by Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

We have been here before with Wales, down the same dressing room tunnel in Athlone interviewing their key personnel following a World Rugby U20 Championship pool-ending loss to France. A year ago, 19-43 was the margin of defeat which left them contesting the fifth to eighth placings on match day four. That 24-point gap had closed on Tuesday afternoon, the Welsh losing by 18 in an 11-29 loss.

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They had started brightly and were proving to be sticky opposition for the French, as they were by down just a point – 6-7 – following a second Harri Ford penalty kick. However, the situation rapidly deteriorated from there. Tries on 33 and 37 minutes for France were followed by their four-try bonus four minutes into the second half within seconds of the Welsh copping a yellow card.

That damage was terminal and instead of taking what essentially was a quarter-final, a winner-takes-all match day three pool match, to the wire, France were able to run their bench in the knowledge that they were qualifying for the semi-finals as the sole best runner-up from all three pools, leaving Wales to pick up the pieces with a rankings game against Australia.

“Up to 25, 30 minutes we were pleased,” enthused Richard Whiffin, their first-season head coach. “The game plan was working, we were in the right areas but they [France] are a champion team for a reason. They scored a couple of quick tries back-end of that first half and then we had to chase a little bit too much.

“We were pleased with our effort but it was a tough game with the conditions the way they were. We were just disappointed with a couple of soft moments in that first half that blew the score out a little bit.

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“We took the wind in the first half and wanted to try and build some territory and scoreboard pressure but the French got a couple of decent offloads away and they breached our line a couple of times in that first half. They are a good team, have got some outstanding half-backs that put them in the right area.

“They will be a match for anyone in that top bracket but also we showed there is opportunities there for other teams,” he hinted, clutching the silver lining that elimination from the title race isn’t the end of the road for the Welsh at the 2024 Championship.

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“That’s how we pitched it all week, as a quarter-final. I suppose the silver lining is we’re not going home, we have got another two games and the target for us now is to finish top of that second group of four and that will be our goal.

“I thought the forward pack worked incredibly hard and the bench impact, Harry Thomas did well when he came on. Macs Page played wing and 13, his kick chase, his ability around the field was really good but forward pack dug in really hard.”

Their leader was skipper Ryan Woodman, a unit with a promising future in the game having already made the first-team breakthrough at Dragons. “We just let in a few soft tries in the first half which they ran away with in the end and they were good in defence, we only scored one try. Really tough conditions but we both had those conditions to play, they just played better.

“It was towards the end of the first half (we lost it). They just cut us through the middle and then it was tough to claw it back in the second half with the wind blowing towards us. We were quite physical. We scored a good maul try but we will go away and look at why they scored four tries, which they shouldn’t have really, and get ready for the next game.”

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Woodman missed the entire 2024 U20 Six Nations, so he doesn’t know how to compare this Championship title-chasing France with the team that came to Cardiff and enjoyed an easy win in March. “I didn’t play in the Six Nations, I don’t know what it was like. I was injured, but last year they were also a good side and they won the competition.

“They’re a good side again this year again, they have loads of players feeding into the senior French squad. I thought we put up a tough fight for the majority of the game. There were one or two errors where they slipped through and scored tries. That gave them the game really.”

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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