PAXTON PLEASED WITH U21 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP DRAW
Posted: 16/Jan/06
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Scotland Under-21 have been drawn against Australia, Italy and England at the IRB Under 21 World Championship in Vichy, France this summer (Monday 5 June–Sunday 25 June) and coach Iain Paxton is looking forward to taking on the familiar opponents.

He said: “It’s a good draw for us. We played Australia last year in the world championship in Mendoza, Argentina and almost came away with a result (lost 28-22) so it’ll be good to test ourselves against them again.

“Italy and England are familiar to us because we play them in the Six Nations. Last year we played Canada in the pool and that was good because they are a side we don’t face very often but this year we have a different challenge to take on. There are hard teams at every stage and this is a very competitive tournament,” he added.

For the championships, Scotland are seeded sixth following their best ever finish in the competition last year with England seeded seventh and Italy tenth. Scotland take on both sides in the coming months in the shadow Six Nations with England the visitors on Friday 24 February before the Scots travel to Italy on Friday 17 March.

On the host nation, Paxton said: “Playing in France will be great and I’m sure the tournament will be very well run. We played in France last year for the Six Nations and the people who looked after us were excellent and very professional. The facilities in France are fantastic too.”

Paxton has made five changes, including two positional, to his side for tonight’s match against Newcastle Falcons Development following the weekend’s fixtures.

James King has moved up from the bench to full-back with Ben Addison moving to the right wing in place of Dave Whiteford and Lee Kibble moves to inside centre with Robert Cairns winning promotion from the bench as Iain Kennedy drops out. In the pack, Michael Robertson comes in for Ross Miller.

SCOTLAND UNDER-21 TEAM v NEWCASTLE FALCONS DEVELOPMENT
Monday 16 January - Percy Park, Newcastle (7pm)

James King (Border Reivers, Melrose and East of Scotland Institute of Sport); Ben Addison (Stirling County and Central Institute of Sport), Ben Cairns (Edinburgh Gunners, Currie and Scottish Institute of Sport), Lee Kibble (Border Reivers, Biggar and East of Scotland Institute of Sport), Robert Cairns (Boroughmuir); Dave Blair (Sale Sharks) CAPTAIN, Greig Laidlaw (Jed-Forest); Ryan Grant (The Army), Sean Crombie (Aberdeen GSFP and Grampian Institute of Sport), David Young (Leicester Tigers), James Eddie (Glasgow Warriors, Ayr and West of Scotland Institute of Sport), Ian Nimmo (Leicester Tigers), Scott Newlands (Heriot’s and East of Scotland Institute of Sport), Michael Robertson (Hawick), James Taggart (Currie)
Substitutes: Willie Brown (Hillhead/Jordanhill and West of Scotland Institute of Sport), Kyle Traynor (Edinburgh Gunners, Boroughmuir and East of Scotland Institute of Sport), Alex Clarke (Stewart’s Melville FP), Calum Forrester (GHA), Stephen Biggart (Glasgow Hawks), Chris Dunlop (Durham University), Jonathan Alston (Heriot’s)

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This article was posted on 16-Jan-2006, 19:36 by Hugh Barrow.