Hartpury will host some of the world’s top young rugby players for another showpiece event this month.

With a reputation for producing many senior international stars, Hartpury will be the base for all the players taking part in the 2019 Under-18 Six Nations Festival on 11th-21st April.

Hartpury – training centre for Premiership club Gloucester – will be the venue for three matches in the tournament, all on Saturday 13th April: England v Wales (kick-off 12pm); Ireland v France (2.30pm) and Scotland v Italy (5pm).

The matches will take place at the Gillman’s Ground, home of Hartpury’s Championship club Hartpury, which hosted its first senior international rugby match, between Fiji and Uruguay, in November.

Hartpury was the official team base for Scotland and the United States during the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

In the past decade more than 200 Hartpury graduates have gained international honours, including Wales forward Ross Moriarty, England wing Jonny May and Italy forward Sebastian Negri, who are all currently playing in the senior Six Nations tournament.

As well as Hartpury, matches in the tournament will also be staged at Gloucester’s Kingsholm Stadium and Worcester Warriors’ home ground at Sixways.

Tom Radcliffe, Director of Elite Sport at Hartpury, said: “We’re extremely proud to have been chosen as host of the 2019 Under-18 Six Nations Festival.

“As well as showcasing the facilities we have at Hartpury, it’s an excellent opportunity for our university and college students to watch potential world-class stars on their doorstep.

“We look forward to welcoming the players, coaching staff and supporters from the six nations and hope they enjoy their visit to Hartpury and to Gloucestershire more widely.”

The festival structure will be overseen by the Rugby Football Union’s head of regional academies Don Barrell.

“The Six Nations festival is a coming together of the six nations Under-18s teams where rather than playing an international tournament of five fixtures, they come together and play three games so it acts more as a festival in the sense there is no league table or overall winner,” he said.

“One of the really exciting activities is that the players will be doing a peer review, so they will play a match and will the following day sit down with their opposition number to review the game.”