Italian job for Chiefs duo

By Nigel Walrond

Two Exeter Chiefs players helped England Under-20s bounce back from their defeat to Wales last weekend with a crushing 61-0 victory over Italy at Plymouth Albion’s Brickfields ground on Friday night in front of a crowd of 3,027.

Scrum-half Stuart Townsend, who is dual-registered with Cornish Pirates this season, played the first 52 minutes of the game, while back rower Sam Skinner came off the replacements’ bench to make his England Under-20 debut, and got 28 minutes under his belt.

‘It was an amazing experience and I really enjoyed it, and it was good to get as much game time as I did,’ said a delighted Devon-born Skinner, who celebrated his 20^th birthday at the end of last month.

‘It was strange to return to my old club Topsham during the week and be there in an England shirt as we trained for this match.

‘It was awesome playing for England in Devon and the atmosphere was amazing, a really good crowd turned up and it was really nice to have so many friends and family here to watch me.

‘I can only look forward now, and I want to keep pushing and keep pressing, and vie for a starting place in the England team, and see where it takes me.’

Commenting on the game, Skinner said: ‘The Italians play with a lot of passion, and they are pretty ruthless in some aspects, but we just stuck to what we knew we could do and we were pretty hard at that.’

For 19-year-old Townsend, it was nice to England get back to winning ways after the defeat to Wales in Colwyn Bay.

‘The boys were disappointed about the Wales game, but today we put in a good performance, and we focused on ourselves, and we showed that out there,’ said the Torbay-born half-back.

‘It was a great experience playing for England in Devon and I had quite a lot of people here to see me play.

‘It was a bit wet out there, but we stuck to our processes and what we practised and it worked well.’

Townsend admitted he was inspired by what the likes of his Exeter team-mates, Jack Nowell and Henry Slade, had achieved only two years after playing for the under-20s, by moving on into the senior England squad.

‘It is definitely what I am trying to push for,’ said Townsend.