Academy ace Andy Short grabbed a superb brace of tries as England U18s defeated South Africa Schools 45-13 in Kimberley.
England U18 finished their season with five tries and a twenty point haul for fly half George Ford (Leicester Tigers/Rishworth school).
A crowd of around 3,000 saw England take an early advantage in very hot conditions through a first minute George Ford penalty before their lead was extended four minutes later courtesy of a converted Owen Farrell (Saracens/St. Georges School) try.
South Africa Schools came back strongly taking advantage of the ninth minute sin binning of Ryan Bower (Leicester Tigers/John Cleveland) to produce arguably their best rugby of the game with their own converted try after 12 minutes to bring the scores back to 10-7.
England and South Africa then exchanged penalties to give England U18 a 13-10 advantage going into the break.
England and South Africa both converted penalties early in the second half and despite losing Captain Alex Gray (Newcastle Falcons/Barnard Castle) to a 40th minute sin bin, outside centre Short (Worcester Warriors/Worcester 6th Form College) produced the first of his two tries in the game within an eight minute spell to open up the game in England’s favour.
Ford converted one try and missed the other to give John Fletcher’s side a 28-13 lead, which was extended by a Ford penalty and two converted tries from Christian Wade (London Wasps/RGS High Wycombe) in the last three minutes to give England U18 a well deserved 45-13 win.
England U18 head Coach John Fletcher said “Today was the perfect way to finish the season. This is a good group of lads who have all got on well with each other and I hope that a number of them could go on to be in contention for the RWC 2015.
“Christian Wade and Andy Short took their tries well but there was a lot of team work that led to them. We’ve scored a lot of tries this season and tried to play good attacking rugby with width and pace and I think we’ve achieved that.”
Christian Wade said “I was pleased with the two tries but the win and the way we won was the most important thing.
“The first try was from a 40 metre run and the second came from a two on one attack which meant I was able to score under the posts.
“It’s been a great tour and I’m now looking forward to linking up with London Wasps next week.”