Exiles crucial in England U18s victory over France

London Irish’s Will Joseph scored an interception try for England U18s yesterday as they prevailed 29-25 against France in South Africa.

The England side included three other London Irish players, in addition to Joseph, in the starting line-up with Tarek Haffar and Joe Keohane at loose-head prop and tight-head prop respectively and Michael Dykes on the wing. Alex Harmes was also named among the substitutes.

Following the match, England coach Jim Mallinder said: "I think it was a very encouraging performance. We learned some good lessons from last week, defensively I think we were very secure, made some good two-man tackles which helped stop the French offloads and in attack we were pretty clinical and took our chances. 

"It's a great result for the team, you always want to win but for us as coaches it's the performance we'll look at and I think we played really well.

"The players have worked really hard over the past few days and are improving which is what you want on tour and the challenge for us now is to get even better for our final game of the series against South Africa Schools which is going to another huge test for this squad."

The squad will now prepare for their final match of the tour against South Africa Schools on Saturday.

Saturday 17 August 2019 – Hugenote High, Wellington

SA Schools vs England U18 (kick-off 2pm)

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