England U20s - Champions of the World!

There can be no doubt - England have the best Women's U20 rugby team in the world. Last night (well, it kicked off midnight our time, so really early this morning) they beat South Africa 66-7, thus completing an unprecedented clean sweep - beating every other national women's U20 team in the world in the space of just under six months.

The match was webcast live last night - but can be watched starting here (for technical reasons - ie. lots of fiddling to get the kit to work properly - its in several bits. After you've watch Part One, subsequent parts can be found on the right of the screen).

England began well with an early unconverted try from Hannah Gallagher, but slipped behind to a breakaway and looked a bit messy (especially compared with their opening games) for a while, before the difference in experience began to tell and the tries began to come. Midway through the first half England regained the lead, after which tries came as regular intervals. After that there was only going to be one winner.

Now this squad have one more game together - the final against the USA (who, against all pre-tournament expectations, beat Canada 15-5 in the other game) very early Sunday morning (around 1am our time - so if you cannot sleep why no tune in a cheer them on. Or invite some friends round and make a party of it!). After that its back to the drawing board again - that is the nature of age group rugby. The core of this team will be too old next season, and a whole new group of girls will have to - somehow - fill their boots, which could lead to some very different results (remember that last year's England U20s lost two of their three games!).

Until then let's salute the best U20 team women's rugby has ever seen!