Mark Mapletoft has included a dozen of final season’s double-winning England U20s squad in his group for the 2024/25 marketing campaign that may competitively start with their January 30 Six Nations fixture away to Eire. It was final March when the category of 2023/24 clinched the championship with a win away in France and they adopted up that success by securing World Cup glory in July in South Africa.
5 gamers who began in that 21-13 closing win over the French in Cape City – Benjamin Coen, Kane James, Ben Redshaw, Henry Pollock and Angus Corridor – have all been named in Mapletoft’s new squad. Showpiece decider subs Olamide Sodeke, Jack Bracken, Josh Bellamy and Lucas Friday are additionally included together with Jacob Oliver, Archie McParland and Billy Sela, three different gamers capped final time period.
Absent from the squad on this event is the Racing 92-based Junior Kpoku, one other starter from final July’s closing who remains to be underage for the U20s grade, however a newcomer that may catch the attention is Bathtub’s Tyler Offiah, the son of rugby league legend Martin.
A press release learn: “Head coach Mark Mapletoft and assistant coach Andy Titterrell, who guided the U20 males to success within the 2024 U20 Six Nations and World Rugby U20 Championship, return for his or her respective second and fifth seasons of involvement main the workforce.
“The latest males’s skilled recreation partnership established the expanded EPS to allow larger enjoying alternatives within the worldwide area for these within the ‘affirmation’ part of the pathway improvement system.
“The participant pathway programme at England Rugby is a crucial structural basis to develop the way forward for worldwide rugby in England; with 30 of the 36 senior males’s touring occasion to New Zealand and Japan this summer time beforehand capped within the males’s pathway age-grades.
“The largely refreshed cohort consists of 12 previously-capped U20 internationals that achieved the ‘double’ silverware within the respective continental and inter-continental championships.
“Benjamin Coen and Kane James of Exeter Chiefs, Newcastle Falcons’ Jacob Oliver and Ben Redshaw, Archie McParland and Henry Pollock (each Northampton Saints), Saracens trio Olamide Sodeke, Jack Bracken and Angus Corridor, Vilikesa Sela (Bathtub Rugby), and Josh Bellamy and Lucas Friday of Harlequins all rejoin the workforce this time period.
“Mapletoft’s contemporary consumption features a additional 32 squad members boasting earlier pathway caps who’ve now graduated into the U20 programme, together with latest U18 males’s captain and Premiership Rugby U18 Academy League winner Connor Treacey. Six new gamers are welcomed into the England males’s pathway as beforehand uncapped age-grade gamers.
Mapletoft stated: “I’d wish to congratulate all members of our EPS on their inclusion on this season’s group. As this 12 months has proven, it’s an extremely thrilling time to be an England rugby fan and these gamers are already intent on making the U20 shirts theirs.
“The flexibility to pick extra gamers this 12 months not solely shines a light-weight on the breadth of expertise that’s being produced on this nation, but it surely additionally ensures these younger males obtain the absolute best experiences and learnings to progress as rugby gamers and as individuals.
“Our dedication to continuously evolve and entrance up was testomony to the character fostered by final 12 months’s group. While their cycle concludes, the important thing rules we implement all through our pathway are a steady course of and I’ve each confidence this squad can replicate the successes of their predecessors.”
England U20s 2024/25 elite participant squad
Forwards (27):
Aiden Ainsworth-Cave (Northampton Saints)
Charlie Barker (Saracens)
Oscar Beckerleg (Exeter Chiefs)
Thomas Burrow (Sale Sharks)
Tom Dye (Northampton Saints)
Lucas Gulley (Exeter Chiefs)
Reggie Hammick (Saracens)
Kane James (Exeter Chiefs) *
Seb Kelly (Sale Sharks)
Jack Lightbown (Sale Sharks)
Reuben Logan (Northampton Saints)
Alfie Longstaff (Sale Sharks)
Josh Mann (Exeter Chiefs)
Ralph McEachran (Sale Sharks)
Jacob Oliver (Newcastle Falcons) *
Henry Pollock (Northampton Saints) *
Tye Raymont (Sale Sharks)
Oliver Scola (Northampton Saints)
Vilikesa Sela (Bathtub Rugby) *
Olamide Sodeke (Saracens) *
Jimmy Staples (Harlequins)
Ollie Streeter (Harlequins)
George Timmins (Bathtub Rugby)
Connor Treacey (Bathtub Rugby)
Kepu Tuipulotu (Bathtub Rugby)
Charlie West (Saracens)
Samuel Williams (Leicester Tigers)
Backs (23):
Nicholas Allison (Exeter Chiefs)
Josh Bellamy (Harlequins) *
Jack Bracken (Saracens) *
Conor Byrne (Harlequins)
Benjamin Coen (Exeter Chiefs) *
Ollie Davies (Sale Sharks)
Lucas Friday (Harlequins) *
William Glister (Northampton Saints)
Charlie Griffin (Bathtub Rugby)
Angus Corridor (Saracens) *
Dom Hanson (Sale Sharks)
Jack Kinder (Leicester Tigers)
Nick Lilley (Exeter Chiefs)
Frank McMillan (Harlequins)
Archie McParland (Northampton Saints) *
Charlie Myall (Leicester Tigers)
Gethin O’Callaghan (Bristol Bears)
Tyler Offiah (Bathtub Rugby)
George Pearson (Leicester Tigers)
Ben Redshaw (Newcastle Falcons) *
Campbell Ridl (Exeter Chiefs)
Jonny Weimann (Northampton Saints)
Toby Wilson (Sale Sharks)
*denotes a participant capped in a aggressive U20 fixture
