Mark Mapletoft: 'Four-fifths up the mountain... now for the summit'

Mark Mapletoft tried to play it cool on Sunday evening in the immediate aftermath of seeing his England team qualify for next Friday’s World Rugby U20 Championship final in Cape Town.

Having drawn their last two matches with Ireland, they finally put the squeeze on the age-grade rivals, dominating in the scrum and choking the life out of the opposition in a one-sided second half to convincingly win 31-20 after an end-to-end opening half had finished 22-20.   

He was chuffed with what he had seen. You could tell that by the way he tackled his celebratory can of Coke in the DHL Stadium tunnel area before trying to put into words England’s progress to a final in which it was later confirmed they will face France, the defending world champions whom they beat 17 weeks ago in a classic in Pau to clinch the Six Nations title. Here is Sunday’s post-game Mapletoft Q&A:  

RugbyPass: What’s your hot take reaction to reaching the final?

Mapletoft: Everybody is very emotional. We have put a lot of time and effort into this group. It’s not always on-field. A lot of work has gone in off-field to make it an environment that people want to be part of and that is from every single player who comes in whether it’s an U18 training up, whether it is somebody in the EPS squad who has never played a minute, to staff who come in from clubs to help us out.

If you make the environment good, then things just are easy to follow on from and one thing it has allowed the lads to do is to be able to find a way because when you are doing it for something over and above for yourself whether it is just tactical or technical, it becomes something greater than that and I couldn’t have been prouder of everybody really in terms of what they have done to get us to this point. But look, we are kind of four-fifths away up the mountain and we have still got to get to the summit.

RugbyPass: That first 25 minutes against Ireland was tricky, things weren’t sticking for England. Was that the after-effect of playing last Tuesday night against a team that had the day off?     

Mapletoft: In pretty much everything we talked about, we talked about keeping the ball on the field and making contestable aerial contests, and we know Ireland’s lineout is just unbelievable. They do a brilliant job, they are so well coached. Some of their detail; I was a first-team coach for 10 years, I’d be proud of some of their execution. They are able to stay focused after two, three, four phases of set-piece.

For me, that tells you they are smart rugby players and they are well coached. Yeah, look, we did everything wrong, didn’t we? We got the restart, we kicked it off, we gave them a lineout, we switched off and they are streetwise and they scored with it. I thought it would have been so easy for that group to then have folded, but they are not like that.

Our strength in the scrum allows you to get a foothold in the game. We are very quick to moan at young players when they have got an edge and they move away from it and again, it’s something that goes back to my first time in the 20s 15 years ago, we perhaps dominance up front and we didn’t necessarily always make best use of it.

Again, that is like an experience of coaching at a top level and understanding that sometimes… I love my golf and Seve Ballesteros used to say it’s not how it’s how many and ultimately nobody gives a monkey’s what the score is at the end as long as you win.

RugbyPass: That last 10 minutes of the first half, when the score went from seven-all to 22-20, was an incredible passage, what did you make of it up in the coaches box?

Mapletoft: Every team has its strengths and weaknesses, we know we have got areas where we need to improve. Ireland are the same. We identified a couple of things in the lead-up to the game that we felt we could get after and look, what we do have is when we get on it we have an all-court game. We can squeeze teams with our set-piece, we can be very, very good defensively, and we can also be very good in attack.

I was probably no more critical of myself through the Six Nations around some of our attacking execution whereas we have sort of bounced out here and the guys are really starting to pick that up. That’s key players in our back line have really stepped up and used the experience that they have had, whether it be in their Prem clubs playing in the Prem or in Europe or playing at Championship level. There have been some big ins for us there.

RugbyPass: The second half was a slow death for Ireland. England ‘won’ it 9-0 but it should have been way more, it was that dominant. How pleased were you with that control?  

Mapletoft: There is two things. One is we give the players a lot of ownership, it’s one of our main pillars really. So we asked the players to take a big lead at half-time. Ultimately they are playing the game. We can’t play the game from the coaches box or the sidelines. That’s great. But also what they have taken from this season together is they have worked their way through situations.

Even going back to Italy, we lose Archie (McParland) in the warm-up. We go with Ben (Douglas) coming off the bench at the last minute and no nine on the bench – we find a way. Terrible conditions against Wales. The scrum finds a way. Ireland, second half, we were never in it, they were all over us. They were causing us loads of trouble; we found a way. Pau (against France), 21-5 down, we find a way and we have been able to do that out here.

Argentina, 0-14, we find a way. South Africa, we find a way. Look, you have to give them a great amount of credit. They are a great bunch of lads. It works, the dynamics work and it’s really just a testament to all the hard work that every single person who has been in this environment has put in.

RugbyPass: You look as if you are buzzing but you’re not showing it. What does this mean to you?

Mapletoft: Look, it was an amazing opportunity I got. I really love working with these lads. Again, one thing we talked a lot about while we are out here, it’s a month away, it’s a long time away from your families. We have all stepped up at some stage and told the players what it means for us to be here. Mine is I just want these players to be the best version of themselves in this moment and to see them achieve.

This is I think my fifth U20s. There was three before with Nigel Redman, with Martin Haag and Rob Hunter, got to a couple of finals, fell short last year. So to get to another final, we have got loads to do. We have got to watch New Zealand-France and see what comes of that, start the prep again and just let the lads rest up. Incredibly proud of everybody really. When you are a head coach of something, ultimately the buck stops with you around a lot of things.

What we will try and do again is let the staff take ownership of their area to drive it forward. So if you have got the staff and the players doing that, it all moves in the right direction. We have won the Six Nations but we haven’t won this yet and we will respect France or New Zealand because they are very good sides but one thing we don’t do is we don’t fear anybody.

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