IT’S a case of winner-takes-all at The Gnoll, Neath, on Saturday (6.00pm) when Wales (whose head coach Clive Griffiths will be bringing the curtain down on a 75-game sojourn in various dug-outs at international level) host England in the closing game of the 2026 Student Four Nations competition.
Both sides head into the fixture having won their previous two games convincingly.
England – the holders – beat Scotland 80-10 at Hawick and accounted for Ireland at Halton Farnworth Hornets 68-0.
Wales prevailed 50-0 against Ireland in Dublin before sweeping to a 44-10 success over Scotland at Merthyr RUFC.
Should Saturday’s game finish as a draw, England will be crowned champions by dint of a superior points difference.
Scotland host Ireland at Hawick (2.30pm) in a match which will determine the destiny of the wooden spoon. However should that clash finish all-square, Ireland would finish bottom of the table, given their inferior points difference.
The Wales-England Students game will complete a triple-header at Neath, with the countries meeting at Under 16 and Under 17 level.
Griffiths will be in charge of Wales Students for the 50th time, his tenure beginning in 1988 when the side, in their third match, edged Scotland 29-28 at Knowsley Road, St Helens.
The former fullback had, coincidentally, joined St Helens from Llanelli RUFC nine years earlier, before transferring to Salford in 1984.
After steering Wales to a fourth-placed finish in the 1992 Student World Cup in Australia, Griffiths became the Wales men’s side’s head coach.
Over nine years, he was at the helm for 25 matches – still a Wales record for that side – and, memorably, coached the country to the semi-finals of the 1995 and 2000 World Cups.
Returning in 2008 to Wales Students, where he coached both of his sons, he guided that side to two more Student World Cup semi-finals, taking his personal coaching World Cup semi-final record to five.
Back in the Students dug-out last season, Griffiths now hopes to go out with a bang in the Wales-England title decider.
He said: “This will definitely be my last game. A couple of years ago, we were in a bit of a mess and I put my hand up to take the job on temporarily.
“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed building the team up again. We’ve had some decent success, just two defeats in the last two years – to England last year and once in a friendly match to the RAF, which we put right this year by beating them.
“Wales Students hadn’t won a game since 2019 but we’ve turned the tables a bit.
“I’ve got to say thank you to the staff as well – such as Richard Lewis, Rob Apsee, Gareth Groves, Jarad Vanagas, Jemma Salter and Dai Albertelli – for their help in getting us back to where we were.”
Griffiths continued: “It’s been a long track for me but I’ve loved every minute, even the stresses and the strains.
“We had the semi-final losses to England and Australia with the seniors but the players covered themselves in glory in defeat.
“We also had semi-final losses with the Students against Australia and against New Zealand, but just for us to get there was a massive achievement.
“There was also European success for Wales men in 1995, the first time in 57 years, and the Students won the home nations a couple of times, with my two lads playing in respective teams.”
Looking ahead to his 75th and last game in charge (and having already beaten England on six occasions) he said: “We will have to bring our category-A game to The Gnoll.
“In our last match, Scotland got stuck in from the first whistle and we had to reset very quickly. If we had sailed through it would not have done us any favours, but we won the game and we’ve set up a mouth-watering finale again.”