England have named six survivors from last year’s IRB Junior World Championship squad in the team for their opening game in the RBS Under-20 6 Nations against Italy at Worcester on Friday night (8pm).
Captain Calum Clark (Leeds Carnegie), Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints), Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers), Luke Eves (Bristol Rugby), Seb Stegmann (Harlequins) and Charlie Sharples (Gloucester Rugby) all start at Sixways.
Impressive Worcester lock Graham Kitchener – capped during last year’s Grand Slam campaign – lines up in the second row, where he has featured for the Warriors first team this season.
The players winning their first caps step up from last year’s unbeaten Under-18 side, including Newcastle Falcons fly half Rory Clegg and Gloucester centre Henry Trinder, who have both appeared in the Guinness Premiership this season.
England are defending their Six Nations title at this level after completing a clean sweep of victories in 2008 before reaching the final of the Junior World Championship.
“We’ve got a good balance between experience and new players with lots of pressure from the replacements and other guys in the squad for places in the side,” said coach Mark Mapletoft. “We’ve had a lot of tough selection calls to make, which is the way it should be.”
“We’ve got a fair amount of experience for young players, particularly at nine and 10 and I’m sure the expectation will be high because of it.
“That Premiership and first team experience – the likes of Charlie Sharples have been doing well at Moseley for example – should give us players who can help give us shape and direction.
“We’re interested in putting together a good performance, we’ve identified two or three key areas to look at in attack and defence and ultimately we’ll judge ourselves on how successful we are at that.”
England have been training indoors at Sixways and will set foot on the pitch for the first time for their captain’s run on Thursday.
“There’s been very little snow here so we’re not anticipating any problems on Friday night,” said Mapletoft.
“We’ve been very fortunate to be able to use the superb indoor training facility at Sixways and very grateful to be based here for our games.”
England Under 20
15 Charlie Sharples (Gloucester Rugby)
14 Seb Stegmann (Harlequins)
13 Henry Trinder (Gloucester Rugby)
12 Luke Eves (Bristol Rugby)
11 Will Hurrell (Leicester Tigers)
10 Rory Clegg (Newcastle Falcons)
9 Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers)
1 Ben Moon (Exeter Chiefs)
2 Jamie George (Saracens)
3 Bob Baker (London Wasps)
4 James Gaskell (Sale Sharks)
5 Graham Kitchener (Worcester Warriors)
6 Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints)
7 Calum Clark (Leeds Carnegie, captain)
8 Chris York (Harlequins)
Replacements
16 James Clark (London Irish)
17 Shaun Knight (Gloucester Rugby)
18 Dan Williams (Gloucester Rugby)
19 Josh Ovens (Bath Rugby)
20 Dan White (Leeds Carnegie)
21 Rob Miller (Newcastle Falcons)
22 Greig Tonks (Leicester Tigers)
Tickets are still available for the game with Italy. Call 01905 454183 or visit the online Box Office at www.warriors.co.uk