George Perkins and Nick Tomkins celebrate England U20s victory over South Africa© David Rogers/Getty Images

Defending champions England set up a World Rugby U20 Championship final clash with New Zealand after an impressive 28-20 semi-final victory over South Africa in San Michele.

Rory Jennings and Brandon Thompson traded penalties inside the opening ten minutes to keep the scores level at 6-6, before South Africa's indiscipline got the better of them.

Captain Hanro Liebenberg and Jason Jenkins were both sin-binned for high tackles on 11 and 22 minutes respectively, before England took full advantage.

James Chisholm crossed for the opening try and, after seeing Jennings denied by the TMO, good work from the England scrum was rewarded with a penalty try shortly before half-time. Jennings converted to give Jon Callard's side an 18-6 lead at the break.

Jennings struck with a third penalty shortly after the restart, while an impressive England defence held firm under pressure from the junior Springboks. However, England wrapped up victory with nine minutes remaining when Nick Tomkins powered over the whitewash following smart work from George Perkins.

Jennings converted to make it 28-6 before Tomkins was shown a yellow card for a high tackle. South Africa pressed in the final minutes, with Malcolm Jaer brilliantly grounding the ball in the far corner for their first try and Thompson adding the extras.

Daniel du Plessis grounded again for the Boks after a classy sidestep but, despite Thompson converting, the damage had already been done and England advanced to their third straight final.

Their opponents will be New Zealand, who hammered France with a 45-7 victory which included a hat-trick from winger Trevita Li. Two further tries from Akira Ioane and one from Jack Goodhue, plus 15 points from the boot of Otere Black, ensured France were well beaten. Clement Castets went over for France, with Thomas Ramos converting.

"We knew they had good forwards, they score all their tries from the maul," Li said. "So we knew we had to stop that and our forwards worked really hard on their analysis so the credit has to go to them really."

Elsewhere, Australia beat Scotland 31-21 in the fifth against eighth place play-off, while Argentina beat Italy 46-5.