News

New Zealand clinch JWC crown

June 22 2008

New Zealand claimed the spoils at the IRB Junior World Championship after recording a clinical 38-3 victory in over England in Sunday's final at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea, running four clever tries past the challengers.

Although Nigel Redman's side put in a brave effort, New Zealand dominated a contest that saw England - who were unbeaten in nine matches in 2008 until today - restricted to a single penalty from the fly half Alex Goode.

A penalty from the full-back Trent Renata inside five minutes handed the pre-tournament favourites the initiative, but within 90 seconds of that opening score England should have been level through a Goode penalty.

Unfortunately for the fly-half his kick from 20 metres shaved the upright and allowed New Zealand to ultimately clear their lines.

Having beaten Australia and South Africa in their previous two games in this inaugural Under-20 competition and with a Six Nations Grand Slam firmly behind them, England were understandably confident of taking the ultimate scalp.

However, Goode was proving to be anything but confident in front of the posts and his second poorly-struck penalty shaved the opposite upright, leaving England to ponder what might have been.

Kade Poki, already a Super 14 winner with the Crusaders this year and like many of his team-mates a member of the side that won the last IRB U19 World Championship in 2007, made England pay when he scrambled over for a try in the 17th minute.

Renata's conversion handed the Baby Blacks a 10-point advantage inside the opening quarter, the try from Poki providing an injection of confidence in the New Zealand backline and from that juncture their free-flowing rugby left the 8,537-strong crowd thoroughly satisfied.

Goode found his range after 25 minutes to reduce the arrears, but such was the New Zealand dominance at the tackle area, that England found it as much as they could do to simply keep them at bay.

To their credit it was a defensive effort that restricted New Zealand to one further first-half score, a penalty from the fly-half Daniel Kirkpatrick two minutes into stoppage time.

However Renata's second penalty six minutes after the interval put further daylight between the sides and his third, six minutes later, made the game safe before centre Jackson Willison dived over in the corner for New Zealand's second try.

New Zealand did have replacement scrum-half Aaron Smith sin-binned for not rolling away in the tackle after 65 minutes, but shortly after England were reduced to 14 men when flanker Calum Clark was sent off by referee Peter Fitzgibbon for a head butt.

There was still more salt to rub into England's wounds in their first age-grade final on the world stage, with replacement Andre Taylor and then Ryan Crotty scoring tries which man-of-the-match Kirkpatrick duly converted.

The try put a huge smile on the face of Crotty, the centre having broken his ankle early in the IRB U19 World Championship final against South Africa last year and not been present to see Chris Smith lift the trophy that day.

The scorers:

For New Zealand:

Tries: Poki, Willison, Taylor, Crotty

Cons: Renata, Kirkpatrick 2

Pens: Renata 3, Kirkpatrick

For England:

Pen: Goode

The teams:

New Zealand: 15 Trent Renata, 14 Kade Poki, 13 Jackson Willison, 12 Ryan Crotty, 11 Zac Guildford, 10 Daniel Kirkpatrick, 9 Grayson Hart, 8 Nasi Manu, 7 Luke Braid, 6 Peter Saili, 5 Sam Whitelock, 4 Chris Smith (c), 3 Ben Afeaki, 2 Ash Dixon, 1 Paea Fa'anunu.

Replacements: 16 Quentin MacDonald, 17 Rodney Ah You, 18 Josh Townsend, 19 Hugh Reed, 20 Aaron Smith, 21 Sean Maitland, 22 Andre Taylor.

England: 15 Noah Cato, 14 Mark Odejobi, 13 Luke Eves, 12 Jordan Turner-Hall, 11 Miles Benjamin, 10 Alex Goode, 9 Joe Simpson, 8 Hugo Ellis (c), 7 Calum Clark, 6 Jon Fisher, 5 Gregor Gillanders, 4 Ben Thomas, 3 Alex Corbisiero, 2 Joe Gray, 1 Nathan Catt.

Replacements: 16 Scott Freer, 17 Billy Moss, 18 Scott Hobson, 19 Matthew Cox, 20 Ben Youngs, 21 Rob Miller, 22 Seb Stegmann.

Referee: Peter Fitzgibbon Ireland

Touch judges: James Bolabiu (Fiji), Hugh Watkins (Wales)

TMO: Derek Bevan (Wales)

With thanks to the IRB