BBC Sport

After finishing the 2025 Under-20 Six Nations by denying England a Grand Slam, Wales aim to hit those highs more consistently in this year's championship.

Richard Whiffin's youngsters start their campaign in Northampton on Friday (19:45 GMT) when the visitors will feature seven survivors from a famous night in Cardiff.

England were chasing a first under-20s clean sweep since 2021, but were rattled by their tenacious hosts, who were 23-13 winners at the Arms Park.

"It showed how that young group of players had performances in them," said Whiffin, who has been in charge since December 2023.

"The challenge for any coach is to then get some consistency, which is something that we have challenged this group about delivering.

"We know that we have good games in us, but need to be able to reach the highs of that performance more regularly."

Wales also beat Ireland and Italy last year, but disappointed in the summer World Rugby U20 Championship, when they finished eighth after one victory in five fixtures.

The likes of Harry Beddall, Aidan Boshoff and Sam Scott have progressed from age-grade rugby, but Whiffin has four players in his 23 that were on duty in the United Rugby Championship (URC) last weekend.

Wing Tom Bowen has scored seven tries for Cardiff and was joined by centre Steffan Emanuel at Ulster, Scarlets fly-half Carwyn Leggatt-Jones started at Benetton while Evan Minto was an unused replacement for Dragons at Ospreys.

Minto, who started every game in the 2025 championship, has to be content with being one of six forwards on the bench at Franklin's Gardens in a bid to counter English power.

"They can take away from last year's win how physical we need to be against England and how we have to be at a level for 80 minutes," said Whiffin.

"In that game, we had our fingers in the dam for the first 10 minutes. We held out on our line a couple of times and the boys' belief grew from that.

"This year's group have certainly performed better against England at under-18 level, so have less of a fear factor. We have a group who are confident in the game plan and themselves.

"Any England team at age-grade level should be targeting tournaments with the player base they have got. They will be full of confidence but so are we with the weapons that we have in the team."

Wales have not won in England since the 2016 success in Bristol that was part four of a Grand Slam.

How they line up

Wales Under-20s: Woods (Bath); Cummings (Cardiff), Darwin-Lewis (Cardiff), S Emanuel (Cardiff, co-capt), Bowen (Cardiff); Leggatt-Jones (Scarlets), S Davies (Cardiff); Tuckley (Dragons), Howe (Cardiff), Pritchard (Scarlets), L Evans (Exeter), Osian J Williams (Bristol), Osian Williams (Scarlets), C James (Gloucester), Gwynne (Gloucester, co-capt).

Replacements: O Thomas (Bath), D James (Ospreys), Godfrey (Exeter), Cottle (Cardiff), Minto (Dragons), Kossuth (Scarlets), Woodyatt (Gloucester), Lucas (Cardiff).