England Women U20s beat South Africa to claim third at Nations Cup

View the complete schedule, rosters & results from the U20 Nations Cup here.

from RFU.com:

England Women U20s ended their U20s Nations Cup campaign with an impressive 27-3 win over South Africa at Trent College to secure third place in the tournament.

Tries from Chelsey Fuggle, Ellie Gattlin, Charlie Notman, Lucy Wood and Rochelle Smith secured the win, which Head Coach Amanda Bennett described as “impressive.”

England applied early pressure on the South African back line, securing a penalty that lead to Chelsey Fuggle going over from the back of a rolling maul.

This was followed shortly after with another England try, this time from lock Ellie Gattlin, who was able to drive over the line from a line out. The first half performance was strong from England as they dominated proceedings, but scoring was difficult in wet and breezy conditions. This didn’t stop South Africa’s fullback Kirsten Conrad from slotting a difficult penalty from 40 meters out to bring them back into the match at 10-3.

Photo: rugbymatters

But England hit back quickly with another try when Charlie Notman collected from Bianca Blackburn before touching down out wide. Increased pressure from England saw several mistakes in the South African 22 and the forwards gave Lucie Wood an armchair ride to score from eight yards out.

They weren’t finished yet though as centre Rochelle Smith crashed over following a great offload from Rebecca Scholes. Scholes then converted to take the final score to 27-3.

Bennett said: “I’m delighted to get the win and I’m extremely pleased for the players – they deserve it. We have worked very hard and have improved over the course of the two weeks in every aspect of our game and it was great to pull it all together and perform in the way that we did.

“We went ahead early and put ourselves into a strong position and we kicked on in the second half which was impressive. We played South Africa in the opening game of the tournament and lost but since then we have pulled together, our game understanding has improved and to get this win is a testament to the hard work put in by everyone involved.”

View the complete schedule, rosters & results from the U20 Nations Cup here.