Captain Ryan Woodman praised a composed display from Wales Under-20s as they secured a 40-21 win over Georgia to reach the fifth-place play-off final at the World Rugby U20 Championship.
The victory, their second in four games at the tournament in South Africa, set-up a final clash with Australia. If they win that one, they will take fifth place and make it their best finish since 2013. That is a massive turnaround for a team who suffered a whitewash in the Six Nations a few months earlier.
“I’m really happy for the boys after all the hard work they’ve been putting in. They had a good driving maul, but we stayed composed in what was a very physical game,” said Wales skipper Woodman.
“That’s the sort of result we should be coming away with every game. We kept them in their 22 in the first half and that meant they wouldn’t be scoring any points.
“We kept the pressure on them, and we knew the tries would come. We know we can score tries and we could have scored two or three more in the first half but for some individual errors.
“We needed to stay composed and not do what we did against New Zealand, which was lose control of the game at the start of the second half. Dan Edwards’ kicking and the chase from the players really put pressure on them, and they didn’t really know what to do in the end.
“We haven’t played Australia yet, but we know they have just beaten New Zealand. We felt we should have done that as well in our opening game.”
I’m really happy for the boys after all the hard work they’ve been putting in... They had a good driving maul, but we stayed composed in what was a very physical game...
