Both Max Malins and Jack Singleton pointed to the physicallity of Wales as being a key point in England U20s’ six nations defeat.
The game, played at Bristol City’s Ashton Gate ground, saw Wales come away with a 42-16 win.
The visitors scored six tries in total and with three coming in the first 20 minutes, it was a tough day at the office for the young English side.
Old Albanian’s Malins though was still looking at the positives.
He said: “We knew what they were going to bring and we knew they were going to be physical.
“They probably shocked us at the breakdown. They put a lot of numbers in and disrupted our ball which meant we didn’t have a lot of fluency in attack.
“But it is invaluable experience for all of us and we’ll go into next week [away to France] hopefully with a lot of positivity and get a result.”
It was a point echoed by former Harpenden man Singleton, who says a good performance against the French is vital ahead of this summer’s Junior World Cup.
“They are a good side, a strong side up front and they had a good scrum,” he said.
“I think we did come out in the second half much better. They shook us in the first half but we left ourselves too much to do in the end.
“We’ve got one boy playing who was in the 20s last year so we’re a young group.
“We’re only going to gel more and we’re only going to get better and hopefully we can build on that going into the world cup.”
For more from the pair, see this week’s Herts Advertiser, out Thursday.
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