Mark Mapletoft has taken the pressure off his World Championship hunting England side by saying this week’s final is not the be-all and end-all for his group.
Sunday’s showpiece final sees England take on three-time reigning winners France in South Africa, with the Red Rose hoping to capture their first World Championship triumph since 2016.
However, head coach Mapletoft points to back-to-back senior World Cup champions South Africa and their shortcomings at the age-grade event, with the former Gloucester, Harlequins and London Irish fly-half stressing it’s the experiences his men go on rather than the titles they win at this age, that will shape the rest of their career.
Mapletoft told The Rugby Paper: “Games like this are why you come into these tournaments but it’s not the defining reason you do it. South Africa have won four World Cup’s out of the eight they’ve competed in and have only won one Junior World Championship, so there is clearly no correlation whatsoever between the two. However, a lot of their players progress from their U20s into the senior setup like most countries. It’s important that the experiences they have along the way in terms of testing themselves against the best players in the world.”
England secured a long-awaited victory over Ireland to reach the final, while France avenged their previous loss to New Zealand.
England managed to gain a spot in the final for the first time since 2018, as they continued their winning run this summer courtesy of their 31-20 triumph on Sunday through tries by Ollie Allan, Craig Wright and Sean Kerr, who also converted two of the scores and kicked his side to victory with four penalties, bringing his own points total to 21 points.
Ireland’s 20 points with tries from Oliver Coffey and Bryn Ward just weren’t enough for the men in green, as Mapletoft’s young side proved too much by breaking a streak of high scoring draws between the two sides.
England come into the showpiece contest unbeaten in 2024 having made the final at the DHL Stadium in Cape Town, through victories over Fiji, Argentina and South Africa after their Six Nations title win earlier this year.
A victory would result in a historical double for England but Mapletoft believes it’s wrong to judge the improving pathway on one singular result.
He added: “Whatever happens on Friday you shouldn’t judge a whole programme on one particular game. The men’s pathway staff have worked incredibly hard in the last three to four years post Covid to really try and get it back to a point where we can be competitive regularly in competitions against the best teams in the world. We’re starting to get where we need to be but I certainly wouldn’t judge a programme, it does show we can compete against teams that have dominated Junior World Cup’s and Six Nations over the last four to five years, being France and Ireland.”
By Ben Jaycock
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