USA, Canada set sights on promotion to Junior World Championship
World’s best U20s await winners of eight-team IRB tournament in Hong Kong
Top seeds United States and Canada will lead the challenge for IRB Junior World Rugby Trophy (JWRT) honours in Hong Kong next week when the futures stars of world rugby compete for promotion to the 2015 IRB Junior World Championship (JWC) in Italy.
The JWRT tournament, which is being staged in Asia for the first time, kicks off at Hong Kong Football Club on Monday (April 7) with under-20s teams from seven international unions – Canada, Georgia, Japan, Namibia, Tonga, USA and Uruguay – joining hosts Hong Kong.
We are hoping to win [the tournament], but to do that we must win every game against quality opposition
The United States won the 2012 JWRT and were promoted compete in last year’s JWC in France, but were relegated after finishing bottom in the 12-team tournament. They start next week’s JWRT as favourites and are strongly fancied to make an immediate return to the JWC.
“We hope to win our pool matches and qualify for the final,” said USA coach Billy Millard. “We have a young team with 50 per cent of the squad eligible to return next year.
“There are no official under-20 age level leagues or competitions in the USA, so most eligible players are first-year university students with a sprinkling of second-year students and high school players. Most of the USA under-20s squad have come through the USA age-grade system,” Millard explained.
Canada finished runners-up to Italy at last year’s JWRT in Chile and will have 10 players returning from that squad.