Shropshire rugby ace Graham Kitchener helped England begin their defence of the Under-20 Six Nations Championship with a 17-0 win over Italy at his home club of Worcester Warriors.

Disappointingly the match had to be played behind closed doors because of the recent snow. Though the pitch was playable, if slippy, the main concern was the safety of the general public getting to and from the ground in cold weather.

Once the decision to play the match behind closed doors was taken, the match was brought forward to 5.30pm.

Kitchener, a former pupil of Adams Grammar in Newport, played the full 80 minutes of a game in which England scored tries through centre Henry Trinder (Gloucester) and Luke Eves (Bristol) and wing Seb Stegmann (Harlequins). Newcastle’s Rory Clegg added a conversion.

Family

Kitchener was pulling on an England shirt on his home ground for the first time and said it was a disappointment not to have family, friends and the home fans cheering him on.

“I was a bit downhearted when I heard,” he said.

“I’d built this game up for a while so I was really disappointed that it was going to be behind closed doors.

“Considering the conditions we played some decent rugby. There were a few mistakes, you have to expect that, but we’ll go away and analyse what happened.

“We’ve got to keep on improving because Wales (on Friday) will be a much bigger task.”