Four Dragons in U20s Side to Face Italy

Four Dragons RFC players have been selected in the Wales U20s squad to take on Italy on Friday night.

Scrum-half Logan Franklin and number eight Evan Minto keep their places in the starting XV following defeat in France, while fly-half Harri Ford is once again on the bench, this time accompanied by flanker Ryan Jones.

In total head coach Richard Whiffin has made four changes to the starting XV which lost in France with loosehead prop Louie Trevett, lock Dan Gemine, centre Osian Roberts and back three Tom Bowen all getting an opportunity to impress.

Gemine comes in for Dragons second row Nick Thomas who was injured during the game against France.

Wales will look to bounce back against an Italian side which won 22-10 in Scotland during the opening round of the U20 Six Nations.

“The score-line [against France] didn’t really reflect how the game was,” said Whiffin. “They felt they were in the game the whole time, so we’ve pushed on that and looked at the positives but obviously there are aeras where we need to improve.” 

"I thought our pack fronted up incredibly well. Up to 50 minutes we were right in the game but a couple of contentious decisions probably didn’t go our way. Yes, the wheels came off when trying to chase the game a little bit but I actually thought there were some really good elements from our team we can hang our hat on.

“We’re confident in every single game we go into. We’ve got a good plan that we are going after.

“Italy are a big physical team but there’s opportunities for us to move them around and be smart with our kicking game and try and preserve some space for our outside backs to get on top of them.”