George Perkins put a bow on England U20’s Six Nations campaign with a late try in their championship-winning victory over France on Friday.

The Saracens and Old Albanian winger, who is a former Oaklands College student, scored the last try of the match, handing the Three Lions a 24-11 win in front of 12,600 fans at Brighton’s Amex Stadium

Head coach Jon Callard said: “I’m extremely proud of all of the players and the management. It was a challenging game – France were extremely well drilled – but the players fronted up in the second half and ultimately deserved that win.

“We’re halfway through our season with the junior world cup coming up in June, and we’re looking forward to heading out to Italy to defend the trophy. We have a talented group of players and a huge amount of credit must go to the clubs and the academies who put a lot of work into their guys.”

After an early long-range Aaron Morris penalty went wide, Rory Jennings and France’s Thomas Ramos exchanged kicks for 6-6 after 30 minutes.

France were applying pressure and saw a try disallowed for a knock-on in the build-up, but they did get their first score on 32 minutes when No. 8 Fabien Sanconnie barged over.

Two quick-fire Jennings penalties put England 12-11 ahead early in the second period and they kicked on to take the game beyond France.

First Stuart Townsend charged down his own box kick which Joe Marchant gathered superbly before pirouetting on the try line to score. And minutes later England made the game safe. A break from Jack Walker eventually fell to Sam Skinner who showed excellent presence of mind to offload to Perkins who dotted down.