Head coach Richard Whiffin has named his Wales men’s side to face Australia in the 5th-place semi-final of the U20 World Championship at Danie Craven Stadium on Sunday (6pm BST) - and he includes four Dragons in the match day squad.
There will be seven players – Jonny Green, Ryan Woodman, Morgan Morse, Kian Hire and Lucas de la Rua in the forwards, along with backs Harri Wilde and Louie Hennessey – who played against the junior Wallabies in last year’s 5th place final when Australia secured a 33-57 victory.
Ospreys No 8 Morgan Morse will be playing in his 23rd international to join former Scarlets winger Ryan Conbeer as the highest capped Welshman at U20 level.
“The nature of the tournament means you have to be smart and rotate the squad,” said Whiffin.
“Harry Beddall is back fit now and therefore comes in to give us big energy. That gives Lucas de la Rua an opportunity to make an impact off the bench.
“We’ve been smart around our backline. We’ve been asking a lot of the amount of metres we want our backs to get through in terms of kick chase and territory gain so we’ve changed a few of those positions.
“We’re reasonably healthy – we’ve had to make a couple of changes but we’re looking forward to Sunday.” Whiffin is adamant the next two games are not just about performance, but also getting results.
“We’re in a rugby championship and these boys don’t get a lot of opportunities to play southern hemisphere teams and play against different styles. Our challenge is to take these scalps, we want our players to get used to beating tier one teams on a regular basis so when they graduate through to the international senior set-up they are playing guys that they have beaten before. And that is important as you don’t want any scar tissue.
“We’ve put a bit of pressure on the boys to come away with a couple of results in the next two games. Yes we want a performance but we’re in a window now where it is about results.”
Wales U20 v Australia U20, 5th-place semi-final, Danie Craven Stadium, Sunday 14 July, 6pm BST
1 Jordan Morris (Dragons RFC)
2 Isaac Young (Scarlets)
3 Sam Scott (Bristol Bears)
4 Jonny Green (Harlequins)
5 Nick Thomas (Dragons RFC)
6 Ryan Woodman (Dragons RFC – Capt)
7 Harry Beddall (Leicester Tigers)
8 Morgan Morse (Ospreys)
9 Rhodri Lewis (Scarlets)
10 Harri Wilde (Cardiff Rugby)
11 Aidan Boshoff (Bristol Bears)
12 Louie Hennessey (Bath Rugby)
13 Macs Page (Scarlets)
14 Kodie Stone (Cardiff Rugby)
15 Matty Young (Cardiff Rugby)
Replacements:
16 Harry Thomas (Scarlets)
17 Ioan Emmanuel (Bath Rugby)
18 Kian Hire (Ospreys)
19 Gethyn Cannon (Cardiff Met)
20 Lucas de la Rua (Cardiff Rugby)
21 Lucca Setaro (Scarlets)
22 Harri Ford (Dragons RFC)
23 Steffan Emanuel (Cardiff Rugby)
We’ve put a bit of pressure on the boys to come away with a couple of results in the next two games. Yes we want a performance but we’re in a window now where it is about results...
