Comparisons have already been drawn between England under-20s outside centre Joe Marchant and the senior team’s Jonathan Joseph, and it is easy to see why on the evidence of the 18-year-old's latest performance against previously unbeaten Ireland at Donnybrook on Friday night. Similar in looks and playing style, both are enjoying fine RBS Six Nations campaigns.

With 10 minutes left on the clock and the scores tied at 14-14, Marchant stepped inside the stretched Irish cover defence and cruised over the line for what proved to be the final scoring act of a match between the sides placed one and two heading into the weekend.

Ireland enjoyed the better of the first half exchanges and were first on the scoreboard when the championship’s leading points scorer, fly-half Ross Byrne, kicked a 13th minute penalty. Byrne doubled the lead at the end of the first quarter before James Mitchell opened England’s account to cut the gap to three again.

A nominee for the Junior Player of the Year accolade in 2014, Garry Ringrose, looking every inch a future heir to Brian O’Driscoll's throne in the No.13 jersey, then set up a dangerous Irish attack, and England lost Will Owen to the sin-bin after conceding a string of penalties under pressure near their own line. Byrne made it 9-3 but Mitchell ensured England had the final say in the first half with his second penalty.

Half-time replacement Piers O’Connor had an immediate impact when he raced home for the first try of the night to put England 11-9 up, and the visitors’ lead would have increased further had Howard Packman’s try not been disallowed for a push on an Ireland player in the build-up.

Ireland hit back though and regained the lead when Stephen Fitzgerald scored in the corner to make it 14-11 to the hosts. Byrne, who missed a total of five kicks on the night, was off-target with the conversion.

Not long after, Mitchell backed himself from halfway when presented with a penalty chance and split the poststo level the scores before Marchant struck with his fifth try of the championship to send England top of the table at Ireland’s expense.

“This was a huge game and to come out of it with a win is massive for us. Ireland came out of the blocks and had a pretty vocal home crowd behind them, but credit to our boys, we stuck at it and ground out the win,” saidEngland captain Charlie Ewels.

“We knew we were in for a tough game, and even when we managed to get ahead we knew that we couldn’t let up because Ireland kept pushing.” 

Meanwhile, France got one over on their Welsh counterparts ahead of their World Rugby U20 Championship meeting in June with an impressive 27-5 victory in St Gaudens. It was their seventh straight win at home in all competitions.

Lucas Blanc, Jerome Jelonch and Arthur Bonneval scored tries and Thomas Ramos added 12 points from the kicking tee as the 2014 Grand Slam winners got their title defence back on track after defeat to Ireland in the second round of matches. 

Wales’ only points on the night came in the first half when scrum-half Tom Williams pounced on a chip ahead from Joshua Adams.

Ritchie pickings

Scotland join England, France and Ireland on four points in what is shaping up to be the most competitive Under 20 Six Nations yet, after a comfortable 45-0 defeat of Italy.

Captain and flanker Jamie Ritchie led from the front with a hat-trick of tries as Scotland backed up their narrow win over Wales in round two to register successive wins in the Six Nations for the first time since 2013. 

Ritchie’s first-half brace, accompanied by a George Horne touchdown, gave Scotland a 19-point cushion as the half-time whistle sounded. There was no let-up in their second-half display as Scotland added four further tries through full-back Ruairi Howarth, wings Ben Robbins and Alec Coombes, and another for Ritchie, who, despite scoring a hat-trick, did not get the man-of-the-match award. That went to tight-head prop Zander Fagerson, who was thoroughly dominant in the set-piece exchanges.

“I thought our scrum was very, very good as was our lineout drive,” said Scotland coach Sean Lineen. “The set-piece really kept us in the game, and the guys continued to try really hard throughout the match. At times our accuracy wasn’t quite there, and we need to go away and work on that – it’s all part of the learning curve in terms of how we need to play the game.”

Italy have now gone over three hours without scoring a try and are facing the prospect of a third wooden spoon in four years unless they can get something from their remaining two home games, against France and Wales.

The action continues on 13 March with all three matches taking place on the same night. Scotland make the short trip down to Darlington to play England at the Northern Echo Arena – the largest rugby stadium in England outside of Twickenham, while Italy take on France in San Donà di Piave and Wales play host to Ireland at Parc Eirias in Colwyn Bay.