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.
Both teams were soundly beaten in the semi-finals, New Zealand swatted aside 55-31 by French flair while Ireland were depowered 31-20 by a physical England who especially bullied their scrum.
Three matches are scheduled for Athlone: Ireland-Australia (2pm local time), France-Wales (4:30pm) and South Africa-England (7pm). Over in Stellenbosch, it’s Argentina-Fiji (2pm), Georgia-Italy (4:30pm) and New Zealand-Spain (7pm).
Blues U20 captain Tristyn Cook thought he'd missed out on higher honours before getting a surprise phone call on a Sunday.
The New Zealand squad features 31 of the country's finest young athletes, with selectors having identified plenty of promising talent at the recent U20 Super Rugby tournament played last month in Taupo.
In 2016 Taulagi was playing for Brisbane State High in union when former North Queensland recruitment chief Clint Zammit was watching.
The usual suspects once again dominate in the World School's XV which has been selected by school's rugby media publisher NextGenXV. England, New Zealand and South Africa all had ample representation.
When tasked with writing about “The State of Australian Rugby” and asked to take a “light-hearted angle”, I wondered how in the hell I could find the funny side of what is a truly serious issue.