England U20s need one point to land semi-final spot
England u20s need just a point to qualify for the Junior World Cup semi-finals but head coach Mark Mapletoft says that’s a very dangerous position to be in ahead of their crunch Pool C match with tournament hosts South Africa.
Mapletoft’s side are yet to play in front of a four-figure crowd during the tournament with their opening win against Argentina drawing just 257, and their victory against Fiji on Thursday in front of 110.
However, their Pool C decider will feature a partisan home crowd and after South Africa were well beaten by Argentina earlier this week, England are preparing for a strong reaction, which has been a theme of the tournament.
Mapletoft, right, told The Rugby Paper: “We’re expecting a much bigger, patriotic crowd and when any team comes off a defeat you expect a bounce back. You saw that with Italy as they turned round a 50-point drubbing by Ireland to beat Australia; Georgia almost beat Ireland and Argentina bounced back from our game to beat South Africa comprehensively.
“We only need a point to qualify but that’s a dangerous position to be in. You don’t want to be scrambling around for that towards the end of a game, you want to put in a good performance and build some confidence going into game four.”
England’s attack is firing with Mapletoft’s men having scored 14 tries in their dominant wins over Argentina and Fiji.
“Across the two games we’ve created two times the number of line breaks we made across the whole of the Six Nations, so we’re moving in the right direction,” said Mapletoft. “We’re in a good position, however the position we’re in isn’t going to push us into the next round, our performances will do that. “There’s been no difference in terms of our review of Fiji and Argentina; good focus, players seeking individual improvements and our training will reflect what we need to do.”
Despite the win, England’s scintillating first half against Fiji failed to be replicated in the second, with their ill-discipline a concern having conceded a whopping 21 penalties.
Mapletoft added: “It was strange because we only conceded one in the first 20 minutes and then it was six or seven a quarter which is disappointing and unnecessary. I’m not sure why, maybe it was out of frustration that we weren’t keeping the scoreboard ticking over like we did in the first.”
England made 13 changes for the Fiji game, with only captain Finn Carnduff and scrum-half Ollie Allan making backto-back starts but due to the short turnaround and 30-man squad size, Mapletoft is asking more players to go again.
He said: “We only have a squad of 30; there’s only 17 forwards and 13 backs, eight of those forwards are front rows so people have to back up. You can’t roll out a different side for every game as we’ve only got five back rowers here. We had to adapt to Arthur Green’s HIA at half-time which wasn’t ideal because we anticipated him playing a large chunk. We lost our primary scrum-half Archie (McParland) out in Georgia so we called up Lucas (Friday) who is a young man learning his trade. He made some really big impacts against Georgia, as well as the two games here. Ollie’s a very experienced player with a couple years on Lucas in age and we have to utilise the right people for the right games.
“We’re expecting a set-piece, kick orientated game in potentially poor conditions and we’ll have to kick accordingly against South Africa.”
