Lucas De La Rua is relishing Wales Under 20s clash with Japan following a bittersweet defeat to New Zealand in the opening fixture of the World Rugby Under-20 Championship.

The young Welsh side led the Baby Blacks 19-5 at half-time in South Africa, before succumbing to an agonising 27-26 defeat.

It was desperately disappointing for the young back-rower, who was one of the star performers, but he takes solace from the two losing-bonus points secured as Mark Jones’ side turn attention to Japan on Thursday.

The Cardiff academy starlet said: “It shows the heart and spirit of the boys. We are a tight knit group and it shows if we stick together and keep together what we do in training will work.

“Going in at half-time we were really excited but at the same time we have been in that position before. In many games we have been in the fight and one of our biggest work ons going into this was our last 20 minutes.

“The main messages were to just keep going, stick to our processes because when were doing everything right, it was working.

“It’s a bittersweet result. We have two bonus-points but if we didn’t drop off for that short period we could have won. Especially against the All Blacks, it’s a privilege to play them let alone win.

“But we’re optimistic for the Japan game. It’s our first game (proper game with a full preparation under Mark Jones).”

The Cardiff and Vale College product is now confident that Wales can kick on with a game under their belts.

He said: “It’s quite hard because we haven’t had a practice game. It is difficult to do things in training to the level needed compared to on the pitch so it was good to transfer everything from the training pitch.

“The set- piece is something we have worked on a lot in the last month and I definitely feel like it showed. Most of our lineouts went forward and were very dominant so we stuck to it and it paid off.”