Sneddon hails huge U20s defensive effort

The Scarlets transition and academy head coach is part of the Wales U20 coaching team working alongside Richard Whiffin and was a very proud man at Rodney Parade after watching the Welsh youngsters put in an amazing 230 tackles against Ireland.

It was a display of courage, bravery and commitment than not only knocked the Irish out of their stride, but laid the foundations for back-to-back wins in the U20 Six Nations for the first time since 2018.

To put the Welsh defensive feat into broader context, inspirational skipper Harry Beddall (34), hooker Harry Thomas (22) and lock Tom Cottel (22) made more tackles between them than the whole of the Irish side (66) over the course of the 80 minutes.

That monumental effort came after putting in 166 tackles as a team in Treviso to earn the 20-18 win over the Italians and 119 in the 63-19 opening round defeat to the French. The defensive onslaught at Rodney Parade also forced the Irish into conceding 19 turn overs and making 25 handling errors.

“I’m proud of the players and relieved given the number of tackles and the amount of work they had to get through,” said Sneddon.

“We didn’t help ourselves by putting ourselves under pressure to defend, but I couldn’t have asked for any more from the boys in the way they worked together. We got ourselves out of trouble a number of times and the effort was immense.

“Three times we held up the Irish over the line – that’s all down to mentality, heart and being brave. It should put a lot of pride back into the Welsh jersey.”

A blistering start saw Beddall’s side race into a 14-0 lead in the opening 15 minutes. The Irish hit back with two tries of their own to cut the gap to two points at the break, but couldn’t add to their tally in the second half in the face of Wales’ defensive aggression.

“We talked about starting fast because the Irish had done that in their first two games. We had a pretty good start with that penalty try,” added Sneddon.

“We were disappointed to concede a try just before half time. We knew that if we got a bit of territory we didn’t think they would score from a long way out.

“There is a lot of negative stuff out there about the pathway in Welsh rugby, but this is a good group and it’s important we build on these back-to-back wins.

We will review the Irish game this week and we know there are areas in which we can improve. We also know that going up to Scotland won’t be easy because we went there before Christmas and faced them.

“We just need to keep getting better by focussing on ourselves. We need to iron out some things that could have gone better against Ireland.

“Let’s get better and go to Edinburgh and have a really good crack at Scotland. We will only get tighter as a group off the back of this win.”

Head coach Whiffin was also delighted at the way in which his side delivered on the field the plan the players and coaches had been working on off it in training.

What also pleased him was the fact the penalty count was dramtically reduced from the preiovus two games. Wales conceded 11 in France, 17 in Italy and only nine on a horrendous night in Newport.

“It was an outstanding defensive effort from the boys. We were under pressure territory and possession wise but the heart the players showed was incredible and it as a really smart defensive display,” said Whiffin.

“We were good discipline wise and the boys grew in belief. In those conditions we knew Ireland wouldn’t be able to put as much width into their game as they like to do and it turned into a kicking battle in the second half.