Eng U20s gunning for glory
England U20 captain Jacob Rowan believes his team are ready to step up another level and claim a first Junior World Championship title.
The U20 squad arrived in Argentina yesterday to launch their bid for silverware against the hosts in Rosario on Saturday, June 5.
England go into the tournament on the back of defeats in the last two global finals to New Zealand, who clinched the 2009 JWC crown with a 44-28 win in Tokyo last year.
England have a tough pool to negotiate with further games against Ireland (June 9) and France (June 13) before the knock-out stages on June 17 and 21.
But they finished their U20 Six Nations on a high, scoring a record 47 points away from home against France and warmed up for this month’s tournament with a decent 29-11 victory over a physical Loughborough Students side in a game cut short by floodlight failure.
They have five survivors from last year’s JWC in front row forwards Joe Marler (Harlequins), Jamie George (Saracens) and Shaun Knight (Gloucester Rugby), flyhalf Rory Clegg (Harlequins) and fullback Tom Homer (London Irish).
Other squad members like flyhalf Freddie Burns (Gloucester Rugby), wing Sam Smith (Harlequins), lock Calum Green (Leicester Tigers) and flank Jamie Gibson (London Irish) have all made an impact for their Guinness Premiership clubs, while London Wasps wing Christian Wade has been scoring tries for England on the IRB world Sevens circuit.
That makes Keighley-born Leeds Carnegie flank Rowan optimistic about their chances if England – coached by Mark Mapletoft and Rob Hunter – can get off to a good start.
“Obviously I’m delighted to be leading England and now the most important thing now is for us to hit the ground running and perform in the group stages,” said Rowan.
“We’ve got a tough group and a very tough start against Argentina in front of their home crowd. We’ll have to be ready for that and then the games against Ireland and France.
“We’ve had a successful Six Nations, had a good training camp in Bristol and then a good warm-up game at Loughborough when we were able to run a few of our moves and get some combinations working together.
“Against Argentina I’m sure the atmosphere will be electric with all their fans and playing in their home stadium. We’ll just have to concentrate on our own performance and make sure we’re clinical.”
England’s look strong across the board at this level, with the current crop of players aiming to emulate Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers) and Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints) who were both promoted to the senior ranks within nine months of facing New Zealand in Tokyo last year.
They are physical and dynamic up front, Clegg was the playmaker in last year’s team and the options in the back three – Homer, Wade, Smith and London Irish’s Marcus Watson – give them more firepower than most.
Rowan said: “We’ve got a lot of pace across the board and that should work to our advantage on the hard grounds in Argentina. Our forwards have also brought a lot of physicality to our game through the season which is something that’s great to have in your team.
“If we keep on improving I’m sure we’ll be a force to be reckoned with. Of course the last two finals and the prospect of going one better is something that’s in the back of our minds, but we can’t afford to get ahead of ourselves. We’ve got a long way to go and hopefully we can get off to a good start against Argentina.
“We can take a lot of confidence from the way we’ve prepared but we still have to perform. In the Six Nations we didn’t always manage to perform for the full 80 minutes. But if we can do that and be more clinical we’ll be able to step up another level.”
