Ireland U20’s clinched the 2019 U20 Six Nations Championship with a thrilling win against their French counterparts at Independent Park, Cork on Friday night.

With Scotland U20 beating Wales U20 27 – 20 at Meggetland, Edinburgh at the same time, Ireland U20 are now home and hosed in the championship and will be aiming for a Grand slam when they face Wales U20 at Parc Eirias, Colwyn Bay on Friday 15th March.

The results from the three games played on Friday are shown below.

Ireland U20	31 – 29	France U20
Scotland U20	27 – 20	Wales U20
England U20	35 – 10	Italy U20

This leaves Ireland six points clear of their nearest rivals with one game to play.

TEAM	PL	W	PD	BP	PTS
Ireland	4	4	49	2	18
France	4	2	23	4	12
England	4	2	28	3	11
Wales	4	2	2	2	10
Scotland	4	1	(37)	2	6
Italy	4	1	(65)	1	5

Ireland’s points came from tries from prop Josh Wycherley (2) and his replacement Callum Reid. Late replacement out half Ben Healy had an excellent game with the book, keeping Ireland’s noses in front with four penalties and two conversions.

France responded with four tries with Jean-Baptiste Gros, Louis Carbonel (2) and Kevin Viallard crossing, the impressive Carbonel adding three conversions and a penalty for a personal haul of 19 points.

I suppose the scorers, two props in Ireland’s case and a prop, an outhalf and a centre in France’s, is a fair reflection of how the game went from what little I saw of it. France looked dangerous with the ball in hand, however Ireland just wanted it more and they put in the work to grind out the win.

The Ulster involvement in this one consisted of Angus Kernoghan (Queens) putting in 73 minutes and try scorer Reid (Banbridge) got 16 minutes. In a tight game, there were limited substitutions and David McCann (Banbridge) didn’t get a run.

Full report and pics over on the IRFU site. 

Ireland		France
Jake Flannery	15	Alexandre de Nardi
Angus Kernohan	14	Vincent Pinto
Liam Turner	13	Arthur Vincent
Sean French	12	Julien Delbouis
Jonathan Wren	11	Matthis Lebel
Ben Healy	10	Louis Carbonel
Craig Casey	9	Quentin Delord
Josh Wycherley	1	Jean-Baptiste Gros
Dylan Tierney-Martin	2	Rayne Barka
Tom Clarkson	3	Alex Burin
Charlie Ryan	4	Gauthier Maravat
Niall Murray	5	Florent Vanverberghe
Martin Moloney	6	Paul Boudehent
Scott Penny	7	Sacha Zegueur
John Hodnett	8	Jordan Joseph
John McKee	16	Loris Zarantonello
Callum Reid	17	Eli Eglaine
Ryan Lomas	18	Giorgi Beria
Ryan Baird	19	Adrien Warion
David McCann	20	Maxence Lemardelet
Cormac Foley	21	Kevin Viallard
James McCarthy	22	Mathieu Smaili
Rob Russell	23	Ethan Dumortier