Three rising young rugby union stars who attend the rugby academy at Otley’s Prince Henry’s Grammar School, have bagged international honours.

Former Craven area stars Chris Walker and Chris Gemmell, along with Dominic Barrow, have been selected for the England Under-18s Conference squad for this season.

All three students follow the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sport Excellence at Prince Henry’s Grammar School Specialist Language College. This is attached to Leeds Carnegie’s Academuy.

All three were part of the initial squad and have to work hard and perform well in the Divisional games, to make sure that they are part of the final 26 man squad.

Once into the final squad they will represent England Under-18s in the Six Nations tournament.

This success demonstrates how far the AASE scheme has developed as players of this quality are choosing to go to Prince Henry’s Grammar School to continue their academic and rugby development.

Forward Walker and full-back Gemmell are former pupils at Giggleswick School and back in September both were named in the 31-strong England U-18 Conference squad.

Both started their rugby union with the North Ribblesdale club.

The boys will be hoping to get into the full international squad for matches against France at home on February 20; away to Italy on March 7; away to Wales on March 28 and then against Ireland and Scotland in the U-18s Six Nations Festival from April 4-11.

England are unbeaten at U-18 level for the last two seasons and the coaching staff, led by John Fletcher, will develop the new team in the four Conference games against the Academy sides from the South West, London and South East, North and Midlands.

Gemmell is also a talented cricketer having played for the North of England.

Walker and Barrow figured in the England team which gained a narrow 30-28 win over Australia Schools with a try scored five minutes from time.

England came from behind five times in a pulsating game at Heywood Road and extend their unbeaten run to 18 games.

England finished winners by four tries to three after an exhilarating contest in which the lead changed hands repeatedly before replacement Tommy Bell from the Sale Sharks Academy, rounded off a fine movement for the match-winning score after 65 minutes.

Coach John Fletcher was understandably delighted with his side in all aspects of their game. He said: “I’m very, very pleased. It was a great game of rugby - we both passed the ball around and scored some fine tries. Who says teams in the Northern Hemisphere can’t play rugby?

“I knew that Australia would be dangerous in broken play and they lived up to expectations, but we stuck with it and I thought that for large parts of the game we were the better side.

“We played some good rugby and we kept going at the end, which was great.”

England were in contention at the interval thanks to a smart piece of work by scrum-half Dan Robson at a quickly-taken throw-in, the No 9 seizing the chance to catch Australia napping and give lock Dominic Barrow time and space to gather the ball and dive over for the first try of the game after 18 minutes.

Fly-half George Ford hit the woodwork with the conversion, but he was successful with penalty kicks after 22 and 30 minutes to keep his side in the hunt.

The tourists were always threatening in broken play and created a handful of openings with strong counter-attacking, but it was not until first-half injury time that the tourists finally broke through with a try by No 8 and captain Jordan Tuapou.

Fly-half Rohan Saifoloi added the conversion to his earlier hat trick of penalties to give the tourists a 16-11 half-time advantage, but that was short lived as a penalty try for deliberate knock-on, converted by Ford, restored England’s lead.

The second-half was a frenetic nip-and-tuck affair to the final whistle, tricky wingman Kimami Sitauti twice rounding off smart handling movements for tries for the tourists and Saifoloi adding a conversion.

England, however, stuck tenaciously to the challenge, edging in front with a smart try from replacement scrum-half Joel Hodgson 21 minutes into the second-half and then snatching the prize in the closing minutes when Hodgson was held just short after a flowing movement from inside their own half and Bell was on hand to drive over.