Graham Kitchener has retained his place in the side as England make five changes to their team for Friday night’s RBS Under-20 6 Nations game against Wales at Bridgend.
Four of them are in the back-line with full back Tom Homer (London Irish), centre Greig Tonks (Leicester Tigers), fly half Rob Miller (Newcastle Falcons) and scrum half Dan White (Leeds Carnegie) all starting. Flanker Josh Ovens (Bath Rugby) is the one change up front.
The changes follow the recall of players by their clubs for this weekend’s Guinness Premiership games, including Charlie Sharples (Gloucester Rugby), Luke Eves (Bristol Rugby), Rory Clegg (Newcastle Falcons), Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers) and Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints).
Three players outside the Under 20 Elite Player Squad coming onto the bench are London Wasps lock Peter Elder, Leicester scrum half Sam Harrison and Saracens centre Mike Stanley.
Coach Mark Mapletoft welcomed the chance to build on the 17-0 win against Italy by adding players to the starting line-up who have all featured for their club first teams this season.
“It’s a big opportunity for these players who bring plenty of experience to the side and have a chance now to make a mark in this tournament,” said Mapletoft.
“Rob Miller and Greig Tonks were involved with us last year, Dan White’s been playing for Leeds, Josh Ovens has made his debut for Bath this season and Tom Homer scored two tries in his first game for London Irish.”
Wales went down 18-17 against Scotland last Friday in Perth, where Peter Horne’s six penalties sealed their fate despite two sparkling tries from Ospreys wing Kristian Phillips. Ireland beat France 9-6 at Athlone in the night’s other game.
England scored three tries as their behind-closed-doors contest at Worcester just managed to beat the freeze with Henry Trinder (Gloucester), Eves and Seb Stegmann (Harlequins) touching down.
“It’s my second trip to Wales as a coach after we went there a couple of seasons ago and scraped a draw,” said Mapletoft.
“There are three or four of our side who haven’t played Wales away, so it’ll be a new environment for them but one they should enjoy.
“The opening Six Nations games were all fairly low scoring but that’s probably down to the first game, the conditions and the new combinations taking time to gel.
“Wales have a lot of talented players in their age-group system and they’ll want to play so I’m sure we’ll see a few tries at Bridgend.
“Certainly we need to step up from our performance last week when we created lots of try-scoring opportunities and didn’t take them. We’ll need to produce a good performance and to finish off our chances against Wales.”
England Under 20 (v Wales, Bridgend, February 13, 7.05pm)
15 Tom Homer (London Irish)
14 Seb Stegmann (Harlequins)
13 Henry Trinder (Gloucester Rugby)
12 Greig Tonks (Leicester Tigers)
11 Will Hurrell (Leicester Tigers)
10 Rob Miller (Newcastle Falcons)
9 Dan White (Leeds Carnegie)
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 Josh Ovens (Bath Rugby)
7 Calum Clark (Leeds Carnegie, captain)
8 Chris York (Harlequins)
Replacements
16 James Clark (London Irish)
17 Shaun Knight (Gloucester Rugby)
18 Peter Elder (London Wasps)
19 Tom Sargeant (Harlequins)
20 Sam Harrison (Leicester Tigers)
21 Freddie Burns (Gloucester Rugby)
22 Mike Stanley (Saracens)