WORCESTER Warriors' England contingent finished as runners-up at the World Under 20 Championships.

Forwards James Scott and Ted Hill started the match with Beck Cutting and Will Butler among the replacements.

England lost 33-25 to hosts France in the final in Beziers.

Steve Bates' side trailed 14-8 at the break with France scoring a try through Cameron Woki and Louis Carbonel contributing nine points.

A Marcus Smith penalty and Jordan Olowofela’s try took England to within six points at half-time.

And despite a further Smith penalty, Joe Heyes' try as well as Olowofela's second Carbonel kicked four penalties and Adrien Seguret touched down to give France their first under 20 world title.

England were appearing in their sixth consecutive championship final but after victories in 2013, 2014 and 2016 were not able to add to that.

They had progressed courtesy of three bonus-point victories in their pool as well as a narrow 32-31 win over South Africa.

Head coach Bates: “It’s tough to take when you’ve got a group of players who have worked so hard together and developed so much over the season.

“It was a really good performance. Obviously we had one or two issues in the scrum which the referee penalised us for but in all other departments we can take a lot of positives and pride from the way the guys played.

“Our plan was to try to exploit their lack of scoring in the last 20 minutes of the game and we were just not quite close enough to do that as we scored some good tries in that last quarter.

“I hope the past three weeks have been an enjoyable and important experience for the players and will play a crucial part in their development.”

England: Parton (London Irish); Ibitoye (Harlequins), Dingwall (Northampton), Hardwick (Leicester), Olowofela (Leicester); Smith (Harlequins), White (Leicester); Seville (Gloucester), Walker (Gloucester), Painter (Northampton), Kpoku (Saracens), Scott (Worcester), Hill (Worcester), Curry (Sale), Basham (London Irish). Replacements: Cutting (Worcester), Knight (Gloucester), Heyes (Leicester), Willis (Wasps), Hinkley (Gloucester), Brand (London Irish), Grayson (Northampton), Butler (Worcester).

Meanwhile, Warriors' Joe Taufete’e continued his try-scoring form with another brace as USA pulled off a huge upset to defeat Scotland 30-29 and claim their first win over a tier-one international side.

The front row took his USA tally to 12 tries in 16 games and is closing in on the record for an international hooker held by Ireland’s Keith Wood with 15.