Thursday, February 26, 2009

Sasha faces a triple summer of international rugby

While Sasha has lost out on an overseas trip with the England U20s this season - because all their games are at home - news today suggests that she will be pretty busy. This is because the U20 Nations Cup has been expanded this year to a four nation tournament, featuring the USA and South Africa along with England and Canada.

The strength of the Canadians and the USA will be well known, but South Africa - though still fairly week at adult level - are also a force to be reckoned with at U20, having drawn a series with the USA 1-1 in February last year.

This will make the tournament, which will run from 9th-18th July (venue not yet announced) a virtual junior world cup as the only significant absentees would be Wales (who took part last time, and were comfortably defeated by both England and Canada) and possibly France -  New Zealand have never fielded an age group national team. 

The format is likely to consist of a round-robin group, with the leading two teams playing off in a final.

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