TYNEDALE Rugby Club youngster Ollie Fletcher has been selected for the England Men's U20 Elite Player squad who will compete in this season's Six Nations U20 Championship.

A product of the Tynedale Youth Section and a member of the Newcastle Falcons Senior Academy, hooker Ollie (19) played three matches at the start of this season for Tynedale 1st XV before suffering a nasty knee injury at Stourbridge - something he has now almost fully recovered from.

The 32-man squad will attend two four-day camps and a training game against Oxford University in the first half of January, which is all part of the preparation for the Six Nations and the first game against Scotland.

Ollie is the son of Tynedale legend John Fletcher, who has recently been appointed Head of Pathways and Elite Coach Development by Scottish Rugby.

John began his glittering rugby career with Tynedale, as a free scoring centre, and was with the club when he picked up England A honours.

He moved on to Northampton and also played for Newcastle and Gosforth.

His impressive coaching career began with Newcastle Falcons, where he joined the Academy staff before becoming the club’s Director of Rugby, with overall responsibility for teams that included Jonny Wilkinson, Matthew Burke, Carl Hayman and Toby Flood.

In his development role with England Rugby, John spent the last 10 years as the Under 18’s Head Coach, mentoring and bringing on England stars through the Performance Player Pathway, including brothers Mako and Billy Vunipola, Owen Farrell, George Ford, Jack Nowell, Elliot Daly and Anthony Watson.

He is a firm believer in how the right learning environment truly supports development, and alongside his rugby coaching roles, he experienced high-performance environments in different sports – observing Nordic skiing, football with Ajax FC and hockey with Dutch clubs – bringing those learnings back into rugby.