U21 Men finish ninth at Junior World Cup 

England's U21 men secure ninth place at the Junior World Cup after securing five out of six victories. 

England’s best show in a Junior Men’s World Cup has been two fourth-place finishes in 1997 and 2001. But on Tuesday, they were clearly the better team in a match among two neighbours. In fact, this was England’s fifth straight win of this edition.

The game was played in an attacking nature, with England earning 10 penalty corners and Ireland seven, while both the teams were awarded a penalty stroke each. England made better use of its chances, with Kaden Draysey leading from the front to score both of his team’s goals by converting a 10^th-minute penalty stroke to end the stalemate and adding a cushion in the 23^rd minute off a penalty corner. 

Ireland were at their best in the third quarter, in which they created five penalty corners and were also awarded a penalty stroke, but they failed to put any of them across England goalkeeper James Carleton. 

The script of the last two quarters saw both the teams failing to convert their chances, and England’s better defence helped them clinch a 2-0 win. 

“It was a great game. Ireland put up an absolutely brilliant fight. Right till the death, it was a real battle. That’s what we expect from them. Five wins in the tournament out of six matches, but we will still get the label of 9^thplace, which we would want to improve upon coming back in two-years’ time,” said England captain Max Anderson. 

“The lads had been absolutely brilliant. We had been building for this for three years. Some of us have played our last junior international match. A lot of disappointment early on after losing to the Dutch. We knew that (match) was going to be very important in the tournament to try and get through (to the quarter-finals). We gave it our all. I think one word to sum it all up will be ‘proud’,” he concluded.