With the International Test break upon us, it’s easy to forget that Australia has sent a squad of 28 Under 20 players to contest the Junior World Championships being held in and around Cape Town in South Africa.
Australia have been drawn as the top seed in pool C along side Scotland, France and Argentina and will be looking to improve on their 3rd placing at the 2011 tournament.
In the other pools, pool A sees winners of the last four tournaments New Zealand take on Fiji, Samoa and Wales, whilst pool B has South Africa as the only Southern Hemisphere representative in the pool with England, Ireland and Italy making up the numbers.
The Aussies will be led by Queensland Reds flanker Liam Gill, who has Wallabies coach Robbie Deans’s blessing to gain valuable experience in this tournament, with the squad having a mix of players who have tasted high level rugby in either Super or Sevens formats, and those yet to play at the elite levels.
| PLAYER | STATE | PLAYER | STATE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allan Alaalatoa | NSW | Sam Jeffries | NSW |
| Curtis Browning | QLD | Silatolu Latu | NSW |
| Lindsay Crook | QLD | Apolosi Latunipulu | NSW |
| Steven Cummins | NSW | Matthew Lucas | QLD |
| Thomas Cusack | ACT | Leslie Makin | ACT |
| James Dargaville | NSW | Sean McMahon | QLD |
| Allan Faalavaau | VIC | Benn Melrose | NSW |
| Con Foley | QLD | Jock Merriman | NSW |
| Nicholas Frisby | QLD | Maile Ngauamo | QLD |
| Liam Gill | QLD | Pettowa Paraka | QLD |
| Kyle Godwin | WA | Sam Reiser | QLD |
| Lewis Holland | ACT | Hugh Roach | NSW |
| Jed Holloway | NSW | Christopher Sautia | QLD |
| Oliver Hoskins | WA | Ulupano Seuteni | QLD |
Australia kick off their campaign against Scotland on Monday 4 June and the match can be seen live on Fox Sports 2 at 10:45pm AEST. So cheer along the boys as they try and get the Australia v. Scotland double header off to a good start.
| AUSTRALIA | Vs | SCOTLAND |
|---|---|---|
| Silatolu Latu | 1 | Robin Hislop |
| Hugh Roach | 2 | Fergus Scott |
| Les Makin | 3 | Alex Allan |
| Jed Holloway | 4 | Mitch Eadie |
| Steven Cummins | 5 | Andrew Redmayne |
| Curtis Browning | 6 | Jamie Swanson |
| Liam Gill (c) | 7 | Will Bordill |
| Benn Melrose | 8 | Andrew Nagle |
| Matt Lucas | 9 | Matt Torrance |
| Kyle Godwin | 10 | Harry Leonard (c) |
| Allan Faalavaau | 11 | Mike Crawley |
| Apo Latunipulu | 12 | Finn Russell |
| Chris F’ Sautia | 13 | Mark Bennett |
| James Dargaville | 14 | Jamie Farndale |
| Nick Frisby | 15 | Sam Hidalgo-Clyde |
| Reserves | ||
| Maile Ngauamo | 16 | George Turner |
| Pettowa Paraka | 17 | Jamie Bhatti |
| Sam Reiser | 18 | Gavin Robertson |
| Tom Cusack | 19 | Adam Sinclair |
| Jock Merriman | 20 | Alex Henderson |
| Con Foley | 21 | Gary Graham |
| UJ Seuteni | 22 | Murray McConnell |
| Allan Alaalatoa | 23 | Tommy Allan |
The other pool matches are against Argentina on Friday June 8 with kick off at 10:45pm AEST and the final pool match against France, whom they beat for 3rd place in 2011, on Wednesday 13 June at 12:45am AEST.
At time of publishing, FOXSports is showing the first and last Australian matches live. It is also showing a selection of the other fixtures so check your guides for telecast times.
Follow the IRB Junior World Championship on Twitter @irbjuniors.
