England’s senior players are off to Colorado next month to prepare for the World Cup at high altitude. Their Under-20 team have scaled a couple of peaks themselves recently by winning the last two world junior titles. But in the northern Italian town of Cremona it was the young New Zealanders who reached loftier heights.
The Baby Blacks were favourites to win the final and deserved their victory but Jon Callard’s team were more than honourable in defeat. Maro Itoje, the Saracen who was last year’s victorious Under-20 captain, has already forced his way into the senior squad and will be on that flight to the United States and one or two England forwards here suggested they may be stepping up themselves soon.
Paul Hill, the 20-year-old Yorkshire Carnegie prop who moves to Northampton this summer, is England’s most experienced player. He was rock-solid in the front row while the flanker Lewis Ludlam, who will be a club-mate of Hill at Franklin’s Gardens, was outstanding at the breakdown alongside the Harlequins No8 James Chisholm.
England can count themselves unlucky that a try that might have turned the game 12 minutes after the break was disallowed. Ludlam brilliantly turned the ball over and the wing Howard Packman showed his turn of pace to kick on and deliver a pass to Piers O’Connor but the Wasps replacement was judged to be just ahead of Packman before he received his pass and dived over. Charlie Ewels, the England captain, had no illusions, however. “We let ourselves down a bit tonight. Hopefully we can learn from this defeat but we were not at our best”
England made the perfect start when the Bath centre Max Clark took a pass from Rory Jennings to use his strength to slice through the New Zealand defence for the first try of the evening. The fly-half Jennings, another Bath player, converted and England were on their way.
The English pack, lighter than their New Zealand counterparts whose captain prop, Atunaisa Moli, at over 19st is the heaviest player in the tournament, were competing well at the breakdown and New Zealand took some time to get into their stride. The Manawatu fly-half Otere Black and Jennings swapped penalties before New Zealand lost two players to early injuries.
Their other prop, Ricky Riccitelli, left the field, although he returned before the break and the highly rated centre Tinoai Faiane was then injured in a collision with England’s full-back Aaron Morris. Faiane played on in pain before being replaced by Vince Tavae-Aso, who had been on the pitch for seconds before he received his first touch.
He wriggled clear of two weak tackles before outsprinting Morris to touch down in the corner. Black missed the touchline conversion but his penalty four minutes before the break gave New Zealand the lead for the first time.
When Akira Ioane powered over for New Zealand’s second try just after the interval the writing was on the wall for England. Ioane, though, was harshly given a yellow card for a foul tackle on Jennings, who punished his indiscretion with a second penalty. Jennings and Black continued to exchange penalties as fireworks lit up the night sky but England were unable to find that extra spark for a third successive title.
Earlier in the evening, the power of the South African forwards helped secure the bronze medal with a 31-18 victory over France. But New Zealand were overwhelmingly the best side in this year’s tournament. England will look for a comeback when Manchester hosts the tournament next year.
