England eager to crash the Irish party

ENGLAND U20s are determined to end Ireland’s Grand Slam quest and revitalise their own title hopes on Saturday.

Ireland have been the standout side after three rounds, with convincing home wins over Wales and Italy, either side of their 1716 victory away to France in a thriller in round two.

Richie Murphy’s side are top with 14 points, with England and France on 11 points.

Defending champions England slipped to an embarrassing 6-0 defeat to Italy in round two and need to beat Ireland to keep their title hopes alive.

England head coach Alan Dickens said: “It’s a spicy fixture and it was a physical battle last summer in Cardiff and I’m sure it’ll be more of the same.”

Captain Fin Baxter added: “We’ll stick to our process and our game plan, we showed glimpses last week of how we can perform but there’s still work to be done.”

Round four kicks off on Thursday with Wales hosting France, with Byron Haywood’s side looking to get back to winning ways after last week’s 43-14 defeat to England.

Wales’ Joe Hawkins said: “Similar to England, France has a big pack and are physical so we’ve really got to front up against them but in this fallow week we can analyse last week’s game and get better, so we can come back firing in our last two games.”

Head coach Haywood added: “We’ll take our learnings from the defeat to England and look forward to a tough game against France.”

France have secured wins against Italy and Scotland either side of that defeat to Ireland and know their discipline must improve from their Scotland performance.

Centre Emilien Gailleton said: “We need to focus on our discipline because we had two red cards last weekend and conceded too many penalties.”

On Friday, Italy host bottom side Scotland who are desperate to secure their first win and try to avoid the Wooden Spoon.

Scotland captain Rhys Tait said: “Last weekend was a difficult loss but we’re a resilient group of boys and we’ll get stuck into the Italians.”