A SPIRITED effort from Warriors academy forward Ted Hill wasn’t enough for England Under-18s in their first match of their end-of-season tour in South Africa, as they fell to a 23-18 defeat to France.
The promising youngster started the match in Cape Town on Friday, which saw France open the scoring with a penalty.
England bounced back with a try from Jacob Umaga, before James Grayson added a penalty to extend the lead.
However, France came back strongly and scored 20 unanswered points to lead 23-8 at the break. England reduced the deficit to five points with tries from Sam Moore and Ciaran Knight in a brave second-half fightback, but France held on for victory.
Fletcher, Rugby Football Union’s national academy development manager, said: “We completely dominated the second half and had opportunities to score late on.
“The reality is we’ve only had two training sessions so the players need to get used to each other. We’ve thrown in some new guys who have been brought up from the under-17s, so it does take a little bit of time to adjust.”
England were due to play South Africa Schools A last night (Tuesday).