Scarlets scrum-half Archie Hughes produced a player-of-the-match performance as Wales U20s finished strongly to beat Japan 41-19 in their second match of the World Championships at the Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch.
Hughes raced over for an early try and marshalled his side superbly throughout as Mark Jones’s side overcame testing conditions and some nervous moments before claiming the bonus-point victory,
The Tenby product said: “It was quite scrappy at times, a few of our errors let them into the game and to be fair to them they put pressure on us in defence. Credit to Japan for doing that, but the boys showed good character to stay in the fight and come away with the win.”
Reacting to his player-of-the-match award, Hughes added: “Yeh, chuffed. Look, all the boys put in a great shift and a few of them could have had the player-of-the-match award. We have shown we can score some good tries, especially on turnover, which is what we have been working on, we’re really happy to come away with a win.”
Next up is the challenge of facing defending champions France, who followed up their thumping of Japan with an impressive 35-14 win over New Zealand.
Hughes added: “It is going to be a tough game,a physical one, we need to make sure we turn around now and go into that one firing.”