England Under-20 got their IRB Junior World Championship off to a flying start with a 64-5 demolition of Italy.
England, Ireland and Wales open up with wins
England Under-20 got their IRB Junior World Championship off to a flying start with a 64-5 demolition of Italy.
England ran in tries through Josh Bassett, Marland Yarde (2), Dan Robson, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Kyle Sinckler, Ryan Mills, Tom Heathcote and Sam Hill at the University of Western Cape Stadium. Henry Slade also added 11 points with the boot while Heathcote added four conversions.
Italy had led 5-3 at one stage, though, after 11th-minute try from wing Leonardo Sarto but that was as good as it got for the Azzurri.
However captain Chris Walker says that there's more to come from last season's beaten finalists.
"We're really happy with the win, but this is just the beginning. There's more to come from us and despite the scoreline Italy really pushed us - particularly early on," he said.
"We'll take a look at this game and then move on to Ireland, there's a quick turnaround between matches so we need to recover well and then focus on the next job. It really is one step at a time and today we climbed up the first step."
Shock
Ireland, who are also England's pool, opened up their challenge with a shock 23-19 win over the hosts South Africa.
Jordon Coghlan and Conor Gilsenan scored tries for the Irish, with JJ Hanrahan adding 13 points from the boot.
There was a winning start for
Wales avenged last year's loss to Fiji as they ran away with a 44-18 victory.
Daniel Thomas, Eli Walker, Darran Harris, Cory Allen, Matthew Morgan and Cory Hill scored tries, while Sam Davies (8) and Morgan (6) added the points via the boot.
"It's a very pleasing result especially after last year. We were keen to put things right after that," said coach Danny Wilson.
"In the first-half we didn't stick to our game plan. We played too much rugby in our own territory and a couple of errors led to turnovers. And as we all know, Fiji are very good at attacking from loose ball.
Scotland, though, suffered a disappointing start to their campaign as they lost 67-12 to Australia.
