England Under-18s 3 Ireland Under-18s 8
England's hopes of winning the AER (Association Europeenne de Rugby) Championship for a third time in four seasons were shattered by Ireland for a second successive year with a narrow defeat in San Dona Di Piave, Italy tonight.
Last season a two point defeat denied England a place in the final. This time a courageous performance by an improving and inexperienced just failed to secure victory.
England will now play Italy in the third-place play-off in Treviso on Saturday March 22 (1pm GMT). Italy also put up brave resistance before they were beaten 21-15 by defending champions France in their semi-final.
"We are bitterly disappointed," said England's lead coach Graham Whitmore who is stepping down after five years in charge at the end of the AER event.
"We feel that we have got a good side who are capable of challenging at this level. We have made a big improvement in the short time that we have been together and the assistant coaches, Paul Mullan and Tim McBennett, have done a fantastic job in taking the players' performance up another level.
"The players share our disappointment at missing out on a place in the final. We now have the job of lifting them for what will be a difficult game against Italy on Saturday.
"But I am extremely proud of the hard work done by the coaches and all the boys and the way we maintained the high standard of performance that we set against Georgia last Sunday.
"The game was very-finely balanced, the forwards did a huge amount of work. Our problem was that we conceded an early try which put us on the back foot and we had to do quite a lot of kicking, particularly in the first half.
"Ireland played a limited but effective game, they also played the referee well and we were perhaps a little bit unlucky to be called back for forward passes when we had try scoring opportunities in the second half."
It was passes from Nico Fraser to Reuben Haile and from fly-half Joe Ford to Jordan Davies that were ruled forward by the French referee.
Having conceded a try within 53 seconds, England got back to 5-3 by half time when Ford (Rishworth School and Yorkshire) kicked an excellent 40 metres penalty.
Despite mounting pressure, England could not turn it into points and Ireland were able to land a penalty, the only points of a tense second half, to secure another slender win.
Ford almost levelled the scores with the last play of the game when he put in clever crossfield which narrowly eluded replacement winger Jon Kennedy.
England will need to give a fitness test to lock Rhys Jones, who suffered a neck injury, before they finalise their side to face Italy.
Ireland will now play France in a re-run of last season's final in Treviso on Saturday.
England Under-18s:
15 Marcus Watson (St George's College, London Irish and Surrey)
14 Nico Fraser ((Haileybury College, Saracens and Essex)
13 Jordan Davies (Denstone College, Eccles and Lancashire)
12 Will East (St Paul's School, Barnes, London Wasps and Middlesex - captain)
11 Reuben Haile (St Peter's Gloucester, Gloucester and Gloucestershire)
10 Joe Ford (Rishworth School and Yorkshire)
9 Matt Keyte (Dulwich College, Harlequins and Surrey)
1 Peter Austin (Worthing College, Havant and Hampshire)
2 Jimmy Stevens (Truro College, SWERA and Cornwall)
3 Shaun Knight (St Peter's Gloucester, Gloucester and Gloucestershire)
4 Daniel Wright (St Peter's Gloucester, Gloucester and Gloucestershire)
5 Rhys Jones (Corsham School, Corsham and Dorset & Wiltshire)
6 Will Welch (RGS Newcastle, Newcastle Falcons and Northumberland)
7 Matt Everard (Queen Elizabeth II School, Leicester Tigers and Leicestershire)
8 Jake Parker (Millfield School, South West Regional Academy and Cornwall).
Replacements used: Jon Kennedy (Sale Sharks and Cheshire), Craig Hampson (Harrogate College, Leeds Carnegie and Yorkshire), Forwards: Arthur Ellis (St Benedict's School, Ealing, London Wasps and Middlesex), Aaron Hall (Berwick HS, Newcastle Falcons and Northumberland), Kane Palma-Newport (Beechen Cliff School, Bath and Somerset), Ollie Stedman (Kings School, Tynemouth, Percy Park and Northumberland), Yann Thomas (Weston-super-Mare and Somerset). |
