HIGHLIGHTS: England U20s open JWC with Italy win

England got their World Rugby U20s Championship off to a winning start with a six-try 48-10 bonus point victory over Italy at the Manchester City Academy Stadium last night.
Martin Haag’s side led 17-3 at the break with tries from George Nott and Sam Aspland-Robinson as well a conversion each for Theo Brophy Clews and captain Harry Mallinder, while the Northampton Saints centre also sent over a penalty.
England pulled away in the second half as Mallinder kicked a penalty to go along tries from Joe Marchant, a penalty try, Jack Singleton and Zach Mercer.

Head coach Haag said: “We played some great attacking rugby, with some real intent which is what we are trying to do.
“At times it wasn’t as accurate as we would have liked it to be. As a group we have standards we are aspiring to and want to express ourselves in our play.
“We had the intent but we just weren’t quite accurate enough but that will come. It was great to blow the cobwebs away and now we need to recover ahead of a big game on Saturday.”
“Credit must go to Italy, particularly for their strong start. We knew they would have a big 40, they put us under pressure, before knocking on over the line, but we were composed as a group and went down the other end and scored and had a couple of shots at goal which took the score away from them.
“We re-assessed at the break and came out with good energy and scored some great tries in the second half, I’m pleased with that.”
“I’m disappointed we conceded at the end, we need to play for the full 80 minutes.  There is still plenty to work on but we’ll keep improving as we look ahead and move onto the next one.”
England U20s will be back in action on Saturday against Scotland who caused the upset of the opening round as they stunned Australia 15-10.
In Pool A, Grand Slam winners Wales conceded a narrow 26-25 defeat to Ireland while New Zealand breezed past Georgia 55-0.
In Pool C, South Africa thumped Japan 59-19 despite an early scare that saw them trail 19-7 just after the half-hour. Finally, Argentina rallied late on to beat France 24-15.