The Junior World Championship kicked off in Auckland today with Wales, South Africa and England topping the pools after day one. In Pool B we saw one of the fastest tries from a kick-off ever, as Wales got off to a flyer vs Fiji, scoring after just 7 seconds.
The opening day included big wins for South Africa, who beat Scotland 61-5, England who beat Italy 63-3, Australia who beat Argentina 36-17 and hosts New Zealand, who beat Samoa 48-12. In the tightest contest of the day, France beat Ireland 19-13.
“We saw some real tough battles out there on the opening day of #JWC2014,” said Jonah Lomu, acting as IRB Junior World Championship 2014 Tournament Ambassador.
“It’s still too early to call it, but some of the performances were really exciting. There was some real physicality and skill on display today. Now that all the teams have a game under their belt, I’d expect the competition to step up even further on Friday.”
Wales scored five tries in total as they put Fiji away with a 48-19 thumping in Pukekohe. Winger Dafydd Howells chased the kickoff well and got a lucky bounce, allowing him to run away with what is arguably one of the fastest tries ever scored in international rugby.
We’ve posted various clips over the years highlighting some of the fastest tries scored from the kickoff in both domestic and Test rugby, with John Leslie’s try for Scotland in 1999 widely acknowledged as the quickest in Tests. This from Howells however appears to top the list overall.
We’ll get official highlights from all the games posted here throughout the week
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