SIMON Whatling has played himself into the number 12 jersey for England's U21 Six Nation's clash against France in Northampton tomorrow night.

The 20-year-old former Devizes School student, who played juniors for both Devizes and Chippenham before spending four seasons at Bath, had a major hand in England's last two tries as he came on for the last 14 minutes in his side's defeat to Wales on Friday night at Rodney Parade in Newport.

Now pushing for a full-time contract at Worcester, Whatling has been in Northampton with the England squad since Monday and his hopes of making the starting 15 were fulfilled when the line-up was announced late yesterday.

"The camp has definitely been more focused this week, selection is obviously a pretty big thing in the squad at the moment, we've all stepped up the pace a bit," he said.

"We're trying to take the intensity from the second half into training this week and into the match on Friday obviously considering our start against Wales."

The rugged Welsh forwards stunned England in the first half on Friday night and punished a myriad of early errors from the visitors.

Wales set up a 13-3 lead after 20 minutes after prop Cai Griffiths powered over and Matthew Jones added the conversion and two penalties before England finally got into the game.

But after stringing together some good phases, they lost Sean Cox on the half-hour when the Bath lock was sent to the sin-bin for stamping by Italian referee Stefano Mancini.

Two converted tries while he was off the field to flanker Scott Shellard and a stunning effort from winger Chris Czekaj put England 27-6 behind at the break.

A second for Czekaj after half-time seemed to wrap the match up for Wales at 32-6, but England rallied with a try to Tom Rees.

Whatling was the second last of seven substitutes to enter the fray, but definitely had the greatest impact.

Coming on at inside centre, he virtually laid on a try for James Haskell after running a powerful crash ball close to the line from a scrum win.

His brief performance was notably free of mistakes after an error strewn first 20 minutes from the starting 15 gifted Wales an advantage, and deep in injury time he made the play which led to England's final try.

A jinking Whatling run and then well timed pass put team mate James Wellwood through the Welsh defence and added some respectability to the final 32-21 scoreline.

"It was pretty quiet in the changing room afterwards, we knew what we'd done wrong, we just didn't turn up in the first half," Whatling said.

"The coach (Jim Mallinder) did have a word to me afterwards. He said I did well when I went on and made a good impact."

The centre, who can also play fly-half and demonstrated this playmaking ability on Friday night, said he didn't know whether he was going to grace the turf before the game, but was happy with his stint at the end.

"It was probably just the right amount of time actually. It was just long enough to show them what I can do."

Ahead of the match at Franklin's Gardens tomorrow against the French U21s, who were victorious over their Scottish counterparts on Friday night, this week's training squad of 28 was cut to 22 late yesterday for the final selection.

Mallinder and manager Peter Drewett were obviously impressed with what they saw of Whatling on Friday , and he will start at inside centre tomorrow night.

Coach Mallinder said: ""Despite the disappointment of Friday, the mood has been really positive all week," said Mallinder.,"

"Our aim this match is to continue our progress and build on that second half performance against Wales," he said.