As for switching George Ford for Marcus Smith, I can understand the logic. I remember Austin Healey saying before Ford entered the fray...
England U20 head coach Mark Mapletoft has praised Asher Opoku-Fordjour’s versatility and selflessness after the young prop was called into Steve Borthwick’s senior squad.
The England coach will be heartened by the emergence of three talented young tight-head props.
It was last March when the class of 2023/24 clinched the championship with a win away in France and they followed up that success by securing World Cup glory in July in South Africa.
Signed by the Bath senior academy in 2023, the 19-year-old tighthead was an age-grade Six Nations winner with Mark Mapletoft’s England before travelling on to South Africa and becoming a world champion last July.
While the optimum number of matches for senior players has been set at 30, it is lower for the U20s and an interesting reference was made about Bath’s Billy Sela regarding where this game time at club level might happen.
England flew out of South Africa last Saturday evening to Heathrow as the rightful champions, the consistency of their potent scrum and manipulative defence helping them to a deserved first title since 2016.
The All Blacks showed up a weakness at the coal face which showed England need to bring powerful new scrummagers through
A high-scoring shootout is the expectation, although the forecasted rain could temper attacking ambition. Here are the RugbyPass talking points about an appetising all-northern hemisphere final in the heart of the southern hemisphere:
Andy Farrell’s men set up a third-place play-off with Scotland.