Craig Everett insists Wales under-20 will need to keep their emotions in check as they prepare for a fiery Six Nations encounter with England on Friday.
Byron Hayward’s men – led by Cardiff’s own Alex Mann – travel to Doncaster on the back of a momentous victory over Scotland, but will meet an England side gunning for a response after their defeat in Italy in round two.
Cardiff academy coach Everett, who has joined the Wales under-20 coaching team for the campaign, is expecting a reaction from their hosts at Castle Park but says his side must focus on the controllable aspects of the clash.
“It’s been a really positive week. Winning against Scotland has put a better feeling into camp so it’s been really enjoyable and we’ve had some good work done as well,” said the Cardiff academy coach.
“Wales v England is just raw emotion, and the biggest thing for us will be to control that. But what we can take from the win over Scotland is that we need to continue to keep our feet on the ground.
“We didn’t get everything right, and there’s plenty to improve on. But this week is another part of the learning curve for us as we go away, control our emotions and get into England on Friday night.
“The boys are all pretty level-headed, so we haven’t had to do or say too much in that regards to be honest. They understand that it’s just a game of rugby and that you need to take the raw emotion out of it.
“It’s an old cliche about Wales and England being big enemies but at the end of the day they’re all just rugby players and we have a system that they will need to stick to and play to. It’s been pleasing to see the way they’ve gone about it.
“I don’t know whether England should’ve won last time, because it’s unfair on Italy, but we’re definitely expecting a reaction on the back of that game.
“But we can only control what we can control. As long as we’ve got all of our ducks in a line, we’ll be in a good place going there. We can’t worry too much about them.
“We’ll focus on ourselves, as we did heading into the games against Ireland and Scotland.
Cardiff academy back row Mann inspired Wales to victory over Scotland as Hayward’s side impressively bounced back from a disappointing defeat to Ireland on the opening weekend.
And Everett, who is currently studying for his Level Four coaching badge with the WRU, was delighted as his side showed their character and proved a point at Parc Eirias.
“A game of rugby is 80 minutes long, so against Scotland we knew that we’d need to keep plugging away for the full 80. You won’t win any Test match by performing for 20 minutes.
“Our message to the boys was clear, and that was to stick to our systems. We couldn’t afford to go off script and had to keep working on what we’d spoken about all week.
“We knew that’s how the result would come, and in the last 15 minutes we were on top and that was really pleasing to see.
“Let’s not beat around the bush, we didn’t have a good start against Ireland. Things didn’t go to plan, and obviously we didn’t go out there with the purpose to lose.
“But there weren’t alarm bell, and we came back and had an honest chat with each other as players and coaching groups. We put expectations in place in terms of the standards of an international environment.
“We had a good reaction from the boys and a really good performance against Scotland. The biggest learning for us now will be to back that up.
“Going up to England will be tough and the boys know we can’t go back to what we did against Ireland. That would only show we haven’t learned anything from the Scotland week.
“It would’ve been easy for those boys to come back from Ireland feeling sorry for themselves. But not one of them did.
“It’s a true testament to them as young men. They dusted themselves off straight away, went back into the next job with focus and it shows they’re a really good group to be able to do that.”
On captain Mann’s leadership abilities, Everett added: “If any of you come into the room with Alex you’d instantly see that he’s not a screamer and a shouter. He’s of the attitude of ‘I’ll go and do it so come and follow me.
“He’s one of those leaders who lead from the front. When he does speak, people listen. He’s a man of few words but when he does talk it’s always got big meaning behind it.
“His leadership skills is by doing, and you look at the games against Ireland and Scotland and Alex has topped the tackle and carry counts.”