All the attention for Junior rugby has been focussed, quite rightly, on the Junior World Championship being held in Cape Town, which culminates in the final tonight. However, let’s not forget the smaller rugby playing nations.

The IRB Junior World Rugby Trophy is currently taking place in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

The IRB Junior World Rugby Trophy (JWRT) kicked off in Salt Lake City on the 18^th of June and runs until the 30^th of June, when the final will be played.

This competition provides a stage on which the junior teams from some of the smaller rugby nations can compete. There are eight teams taking part, being split into two pools of four countries each AS follows:

Pool A:

Chile, Russia, Tonga, USA

Pool B:

Canada, Georgia, Japan, Zimbabwe

The first round of games in each pool have already been played, on the 18^th of June, while the second round of games take place today, 22^nd June (or tonight SA time).

Chile, USA, Japan and Georgia won their first games with Chile currently leading Pool A on 5 points and Japan leading Pool B on 5 points.

Full list of fixtures and results thus far (from the IRB website):

It is very encouraging to see that such a tournament exists and hopefully this helps to grow the wonderful game of rugby through the world. We will try to keep things updated as far as possible as the tournament progresses.