Ireland U20’s clinched the 2019 U20 Six Nations Championship with a thrilling win against their French counterparts at Independent Park, Cork on Friday night.
With Scotland U20 beating Wales U20 27 – 20 at Meggetland, Edinburgh at the same time, Ireland U20 are now home and hosed in the championship and will be aiming for a Grand slam when they face Wales U20 at Parc Eirias, Colwyn Bay on Friday 15th March.
The results from the three games played on Friday are shown below.
| Ireland U20 | 31 – 29 | France U20 |
| Scotland U20 | 27 – 20 | Wales U20 |
| England U20 | 35 – 10 | Italy U20 |
This leaves Ireland six points clear of their nearest rivals with one game to play.
| TEAM | PL | W | PD | BP | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ireland | 4 | 4 | 49 | 2 | 18 |
| France | 4 | 2 | 23 | 4 | 12 |
| England | 4 | 2 | 28 | 3 | 11 |
| Wales | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 10 |
| Scotland | 4 | 1 | (37) | 2 | 6 |
| Italy | 4 | 1 | (65) | 1 | 5 |
Ireland’s points came from tries from prop Josh Wycherley (2) and his replacement Callum Reid. Late replacement out half Ben Healy had an excellent game with the book, keeping Ireland’s noses in front with four penalties and two conversions.
France responded with four tries with Jean-Baptiste Gros, Louis Carbonel (2) and Kevin Viallard crossing, the impressive Carbonel adding three conversions and a penalty for a personal haul of 19 points.
I suppose the scorers, two props in Ireland’s case and a prop, an outhalf and a centre in France’s, is a fair reflection of how the game went from what little I saw of it. France looked dangerous with the ball in hand, however Ireland just wanted it more and they put in the work to grind out the win.
The Ulster involvement in this one consisted of Angus Kernoghan (Queens) putting in 73 minutes and try scorer Reid (Banbridge) got 16 minutes. In a tight game, there were limited substitutions and David McCann (Banbridge) didn’t get a run.
Full report and pics over on the IRFU site.
| Ireland | France | |
|---|---|---|
| Jake Flannery | 15 | Alexandre de Nardi |
| Angus Kernohan | 14 | Vincent Pinto |
| Liam Turner | 13 | Arthur Vincent |
| Sean French | 12 | Julien Delbouis |
| Jonathan Wren | 11 | Matthis Lebel |
| Ben Healy | 10 | Louis Carbonel |
| Craig Casey | 9 | Quentin Delord |
| Josh Wycherley | 1 | Jean-Baptiste Gros |
| Dylan Tierney-Martin | 2 | Rayne Barka |
| Tom Clarkson | 3 | Alex Burin |
| Charlie Ryan | 4 | Gauthier Maravat |
| Niall Murray | 5 | Florent Vanverberghe |
| Martin Moloney | 6 | Paul Boudehent |
| Scott Penny | 7 | Sacha Zegueur |
| John Hodnett | 8 | Jordan Joseph |
| John McKee | 16 | Loris Zarantonello |
| Callum Reid | 17 | Eli Eglaine |
| Ryan Lomas | 18 | Giorgi Beria |
| Ryan Baird | 19 | Adrien Warion |
| David McCann | 20 | Maxence Lemardelet |
| Cormac Foley | 21 | Kevin Viallard |
| James McCarthy | 22 | Mathieu Smaili |
| Rob Russell | 23 | Ethan Dumortier |