Blog Banner

Blacker back for Wales U20

13th June 2017


Dane Blacker returns to the starting XV, as Wales U20's prepare to take on Scotland in the World Rugby U20 Championship on Tuesday (3.00pm BST).

Blacker is one of eight Cardiff Blues players to feature in Jason Strange’s matchday squad, with Shane Lewis-Hughes and Aled Ward retaining their starting spots after impressing against Samoa in the final pool stage match.

Rhys Carre and Keiron Assiratti continue to be ever-present in the front row, alongside Dragons hooker Ellis Shipp, while Owen Lane hopes to make impact from the centre, having secured a brace of tries against the Scots in a pre-tournament warm-up match.

Tom Mably and Callum Bradbury both feature on the bench, while Pontypridd’s Sean Moore is named in the second row.

Blacker, who picked up a try and assist as a replacement against Samoa, believes his side have shown promise in their performances to this point and is confident of securing the result against their Scottish counterparts.

“We’ve taken some tough losses. We’ve played some great rugby but the results haven’t gone our way,” said Blacker.

“We showed what we can do against Samoa, who are a very good team, but we went out and enjoyed ourselves.

“I don’t score very often, but to be fair the forwards have been working very well and given me a platform which I can work around.

“We’re treating this one like a semi-final. We’re really targeting the fifth place.

“We know what Scotand are going to bring, they’re a good team with big forwards and we’ve been working on that and working hard on analysis.

“We’ll be confident going into this one. We’ve focused on ourselves going into this one and if we can stick to the structure and gameplan, we can get the result.”

Wales U20s to face Scotland U20s: Will Talbot-Davies (Newport Gwent Dragons); Jared Rosser (Newport Gwent Dragons), Ioan Nicholas (Scarlets), Owen Lane (Cardiff Blues), Ryan Conbeer (Scarlets); Arwel Robson (Newport Gwent Dragons), Dane Blacker (Cardiff Blues); Rhys Carre (Cardiff Blues), Ellis Shipp (Newport Gwent Dragons), Keiron Assiratti (Cardiff Blues), Will Griffiths (Ospreys), Sean Moore (Pontypridd), Shane Lewis-Hughes (Cardiff Blues), Will Jones (Ospreys - Capt), Aled Ward (Cardiff Blues)
 
Replacements: Owen Hughes (Newport Gwent Dragons), Tom Mably (Cardiff Blues), Steff Thomas (Scarlets), Callum Bradbury (Cardiff Blues), Syd Blackmore (Bath Rugby), Reuben Morgan-Williams (Ospreys), Connor Edwards (Newport Gwent Dragons), Phil Jones (Ospreys)