Wales U18s were dealt a heavy 62-7 defeat at the hands of a strong English side this afternoon at St Helen’s.
England were quick out of the blocks with a huge run up field to set up camp in Wales’ 22. A quick break by the English pack was nicely stopped in its tracks by Wales’s Tom Bowen, but the visitors were quick to recycle the ball out wide to put Conor Byrne in for the opening try.
Going again England’s Lucas Schmid made the break in mid-field but a tackle from Evan Minto kept England at bay momentarily before a quick turnover and offload to Byrne sent him over for the brace.
Wih momentum firmly with the English side, another quick attack saw Jacob Oliver to crash over for their third of the afternoon.
Just before half-time a further two tries from England took them in 27-0 ahead at the break.
Wales had work to do coming out for the second half and England did not make it easy for them. Taking hold of possession, the visitors wasted no time to add Reuben Logan and Jack Bennett to the scoresheet.
Wales kept digging in and powering back against their opponents but struggled to get over the gain line and convert possession into points on the board. A chip over the top from Steffan Emmanuel almost looked to be the making of Wales’ first try but the ball didn’t play in the hosts favour to capitalise.
In the final 10 minutes, Wales kept plugging away against the English defence and finally their efforts were rewarded. A solid take from Harry Beddal put the skipper over the whitewash for the try. Jack Woods converting to put the scores at 48-7.
Looking to finish with a flourish, England made quick work of the closing stages of the match to score two further converted tries.
Wales U18s Head Coach, Richie Pugh said: “You’ve only got to look at the scoreline to see that we were second best today and in a lot of aspects that’s down to lessons in terms of speed and physicality against a more experienced England team.
“It’s good for our boys to experience and play against them but it was a hard lesson but they’re going to learn from that in terms of their development and growth as players.
“But we’ve got to put that right before we head to the Six Nations Festival when we take on Italy, Ireland and Scotland. It’ll be a big contest and we’ll have to get our 26 right for it. We’ll take the lessons and move on.”
