France Win The Championship As Greece Claim The Shield

France won the 2026 European Under-19 men’s Rugby League Championship, beating defending champions England 48–12 in the title-deciding match at CREPS Font Romeu in the French Pyrenees. France finished unbeaten and claimed their second European U19 title. Wales finished third after beating Scotland 58–28. European Rugby League’s closing report confirms those results.

Greece won the separate European U19 Shield, completing an unbeaten campaign with a 94–6 victory over Norway. Ireland secured second place by edging Canada 44–40. ERL’s Shield report records both final-round scores. Greece also earned the Shield winner’s guaranteed promotion place in the 2028 Championship.

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The Championship Was Decided By A League Table

The men’s U19 event ran over three match days: 12, 15 and 18 July 2026. Ten nations competed, but they did not all compete for the same trophy. England, France, Scotland, Serbia, Ukraine and Wales contested the Championship. Canada, Greece, Ireland and Norway contested the Shield.

The Championship used two pools to determine opponents, rather than to produce separate groups of knockout qualifiers. Pool A contained England, Scotland and Serbia; Pool B contained France, Ukraine and Wales. Each team played the three countries in the opposite pool. All those results were then merged into one league table, with the first-placed side winning the title.

That distinction explains the fixture list. England played Ukraine, Wales and France, but did not play Scotland or Serbia. France played Scotland, Serbia and England, but did not play Ukraine or Wales. The absence of those same-pool meetings is part of the announced format, not a gap in the results below.

France–England was the deciding league fixture, not a separately scheduled knockout final. Both countries had won their opening matches and their second-round matches, leaving their meeting to settle the championship. Calling it the title decider describes its significance without changing the competition format.

The Shield followed a different structure: a four-team, single round-robin competition. Each country played every other Shield entrant. The winner was guaranteed promotion to the 2028 Championship under the announced tournament rules. That guarantee belongs to the Shield winner; it is not a statement that every Shield participant would move into the Championship.

Every Championship Result

The table contains all nine Championship matches, arranged by date and round. It uses ERL’s opening-round report, second-round scorecards and closing-round report. The Scotland–Ukraine score requires a correction explained immediately below the table.

Date	Round	Result
12 July 2026	1	England 70–8 Ukraine
12 July 2026	1	France 96–6 Scotland
12 July 2026	1	Wales 52–30 Serbia
15 July 2026	2	Scotland 38–24 Ukraine
15 July 2026	2	France 106–6 Serbia
15 July 2026	2	England 28–16 Wales
18 July 2026	3	Ukraine 54–36 Serbia
18 July 2026	3	Wales 58–28 Scotland
18 July 2026	3	France 48–12 England

Scotland–Ukraine Is Recorded As 38–24

ERL’s second-round prose gives Scotland’s victory over Ukraine as 36–24, but the detailed scorecard in the same report lists 38–24. The latter is also recorded in Scotland Rugby League’s official results, so 38–24 is the score used here, including in the result finder.

The discrepancy does not change the winner: both versions describe a Scotland victory. It does change Scotland’s points scored, however, so the two scores should not be treated as interchangeable when compiling scoring totals. The detailed scorecard and the national governing body’s results agree on the figure selected for this record.

Scotland’s supporting results page is labelled U18, while ERL’s tournament reporting identifies the competition as the European U19 event. The page is used here to corroborate this particular score, not to relabel the tournament or establish a different age category for every participating squad.

The Opening Rounds Set Up France–England

England opened with a 70–8 win over Ukraine, while France beat Scotland 96–6. Wales also started with a victory, defeating Serbia 52–30. Those results put England, France and Wales into the second match day with unbeaten records.

The next round separated Wales from the two eventual title contenders. England beat Wales 28–16, and France defeated Serbia 106–6. Scotland’s 38–24 victory over Ukraine was the other Championship result that day. England and France therefore reached their last fixture without a defeat, having followed different routes through the opposite-pool schedule.

France’s first two opponents were Scotland and Serbia; England’s were Ukraine and Wales. Their unbeaten starts were not built against identical opposition. The direct meeting between them supplied the decisive result, rather than requiring a comparison based only on their earlier winning scores.

On the last match day, Ukraine beat Serbia 54–36 and Wales beat Scotland 58–28. Wales’s victory secured third place. France then completed their unbeaten campaign by beating England 48–12, taking the Championship rather than leaving the title to a points-difference comparison between unbeaten sides.

France Turned An Early Deficit Into A 48–12 Win

England made the faster start in the title decider. Jake Lerigo scored after just nine seconds, and England led 12–6 after 20 minutes. The eventual score therefore should not be read as evidence that France led throughout the match.

France reversed that position before the interval. Giordano Descalzi’s first-half hat-trick helped them establish a 26–12 half-time lead, and England did not score again after the break. The IRL match report confirms the early England lead, France’s half-time advantage and the scoreless second half for England.

Those stages explain the shape of the result more precisely than the final score alone. England’s early lead was real, but France had already taken control by half-time. The second half then extended France’s advantage without an England reply, completing a title-winning performance that began with a deficit.

The ERL closing scorecard credits France with nine tries. Descalzi scored three and Tom Zitter scored two. Stevy Richmond, Yanis Ballet, Ilan Boualem and Charly Martinez each scored one. Thibault Guttierez kicked six goals.

The scoring reconciliation is nine tries for 36 points plus six goals for 12 points, giving France 48 points. Those named try scorers account for all nine tries in the scorecard, while Guttierez’s goals account for the remainder of the total. The figures describe France’s scoring in this match, not individual totals for the whole tournament.

France Finished With 250 Points For And 24 Against

Across their victories over Scotland, Serbia and England, France scored 250 points and conceded 24. Their calculated points difference was +226. The totals come from the three results shown above: 96–6, 106–6 and 48–12.

France’s 106–6 win over Serbia was their highest scoring result of the campaign. Their title-deciding victory over England produced fewer points, but it was the match that settled the Championship between the unbeaten contenders. The largest score and the decisive result were therefore different fixtures.

These are three-match U19 tournament totals, not senior international Test records. They also should not be presented as an all-time European U19 scoring record: the supplied reports establish France’s results and second title, but do not establish an all-time record comparison.

Every Shield Result

The Shield results come from ERL’s round-one report, its round-two report and its final-round report. All six matches belong to the separate Shield competition, rather than to the Championship league table.

Date	Round	Result
12 July 2026	1	Greece 38–22 Ireland
12 July 2026	1	Canada 46–32 Norway
15 July 2026	2	Ireland 64–16 Norway
15 July 2026	2	Greece 36–18 Canada
18 July 2026	3	Greece 94–6 Norway
18 July 2026	3	Ireland 44–40 Canada

Greece finished with three wins, Ireland two, Canada one and Norway none. Because the Shield was a single round robin, those records include a meeting between every pair of participating teams. There are no additional Shield knockout matches to append to this list.

Greece Won Unbeaten And Earned Promotion

Greece began by beating Ireland 38–22, then defeated Canada 36–18. Their closing 94–6 victory over Norway completed an unbeaten campaign and confirmed them as Shield winners.

Their calculated scoring total was 168 points for and 46 against, producing a +122 points difference. Those figures cover Greece’s Shield matches only. They do not combine their campaign with Championship fixtures, and they are not a ranking measure for comparing Greece directly with France across the two competitions.

Greece’s reward was the guaranteed promotion place in the 2028 Championship specified by the tournament rules. The result establishes that qualification entitlement; it does not supply a future fixture list, future opponents or results for that next competition.

Ireland recovered from their opening defeat against Greece by beating Norway 64–16. Their final match against Canada then settled second place: Ireland won 44–40. Canada’s campaign had begun with a 46–32 victory over Norway before defeats against Greece and Ireland.

The closing Ireland–Canada score was much closer than Greece’s result against Norway, but the two matches answered different questions. Greece completed their title-winning unbeaten run, while Ireland secured the position immediately behind them. Neither match was a Championship fixture or a Championship placement playoff.

Reading The Results Without Mixing The Competitions

The two winners should be recorded separately: France were European U19 Championship winners; Greece were European U19 Shield winners. Greece’s promotion reward connects the competitions across editions, but it does not merge their 2026 tables or give them the same title.

Likewise, Wales’s third-place finish belongs to the Championship, while Ireland’s second place belongs to the Shield. Reporting either position without its competition name would lose the distinction between the two fields and their different schedules.

The score lists are complete for the announced formats: nine Championship fixtures and six Shield fixtures across the three match days. The result finder uses the same scores as the tables, including Scotland’s corrected 38–24 win. Filtering by country shows that country’s fixtures; it does not introduce unplayed same-pool meetings or additional finals.

The reports cited here provide match scores, the decisive Championship scoring sequence and the winners of both competitions. They do not provide an all-time record comparison or a complete set of player tournament totals. France’s scoring breakdown is therefore kept at match level, and the team points totals are identified as calculations from this edition’s published results.