Australia 78, Scotland 3

Scotland were overwhelmed by Australia in Dubai tonight in their opening match in the IRB Under 19 World Championship. Winning 78-3, the young Australians ran in 12 tries, six in each half, with the Scots’ only score coming as a penalty goal from captain and Dundee HSFP stand-off Cameron Ferguson.

Scotland head coach Frank Hadden was at the Wanderers Club in Sharjah to watch the game where the Aussies fielded around six Super XIV players.
Peter Wright, the Scotland U19 head coach, said: “We were bullied around the contact point and Australia just seemed to shake off our tackles.

“It is acceptable to be defeated when you play to your ability, but we didn’t play any where near that tonight.”

Scotland Under-19 – Ross Curle; David McCall, Jack Cuthbert, Andrew Easson, Richard Mill; Cameron Ferguson (captain), Murray Bringhurst; Alan Dymock, Frazer Wilford, Ross McCallum, Ross MacDonald, Steven Turnbull, Richard Vernon, David Lambert, Roddy Grant. Substitutes – Willie Lipp for Ross MacDonald (36 minutes), Graham Hogg for Easson (36), Graeme MacGilchrist for Lambert (43), Colin Goudie for Curle (49), Gordon Reid for Dymock (54), Pat MacArthur for Wilford (54), Daniel Levison for Grant (60).

Scotland 3-78 Australia
5 APRIL 2006

By John MacDonald


The scoreline says it all. Scotland fought gamely but were completely outclassed by a masterful Australian side who more than lived up to their pre-tournament billing as one of the favourites to lift the IRB Under 19 World Championship.

On this performance they will take a lot of stopping, certainly more than the Scots were capable of offering as the Aussies went on a try spree and seemed capable of scoring virtually at will in this Division A encounter.

The final tally of 12 tries and nine conversions could easily have been more.

Strong Scottish support at the Sharjah Wanderers stadium was encouraged by a fairly promising start, a penalty by fly half Cameron Ferguson after 16 minutes reducing the deficit to 7-3 after an early try by Australian flanker David Pocock, converted by full back Lachlan Turner.

But the Scots in the crowd fell silent as the Australians rattled in a succession of tries with almost monotonous ease to rack up a 38-3 lead at half-time.

The tries were shared by Anthony Faingaa, Joshua Holmes (2), Patrick McCutcheon, and Brett Gillespie, with Lachlan Turner converting three of them.

The second half brought more of the same, with the Australians crossing the Scottish tryline with metronomic regularity.

Scrum half Joshua Holmes completed his hat-trick, David Pocock collected his second, Brett Stapleton added two more, and Luke McLean, and Daniel Linde chipped in with one apiece.

Lachlan Turner converted two plus three more to Luke McLean when he took over the kicking duties.

A late flurry by the Scots briefly threatened the Australian line, but this time, there were no consolation points to be had. Australia play Romania at Dubai Exiles on Sunday while Scotland face Wales at the same venue.

QUOTES

Australia coach Phil Mooney: “We’re extremely happy with our first half performance, we’ve worked extremely hard in training and it’s just reward for the boys, we’ve got some good continuity, our pace shone through, and it was a good performance.

It’s always hard when you get hit by a scoreline like that, they’re obviously a proud rugby nation, whilst they’ll be disappointed by a score like that it shows a lot to keep coming at us.”

Australia captain Saia Faingaa: “A tremendous performance from the boys, but we still have to work on a lot, a lot of dropped balls, it’s only a start, especially when the teams get better and better. There are so many supporters here that love Australia, so we must be doing something right out here.”

Scotland coach Peter Wright: “There are no positives we can take from this game, I think they’ll be there or thereabouts, they’ve got a good balance to their team, and we were second best all night. We’re disappointed. We have to be here, because if we have any aspirations, we need to pitch ourselves at this level and the only way we can get better is to expose ourselves.”

Scotland captain Cameron Ferguson: “There wasn’t much about that game that was enjoyable, we knew they were going to be very physical, we gave them a game, we stood up to them, we weren’t carrying the ball strong, knocking the ball on, we didn’t play with a mature head.”





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This article was originally posted on 5-Apr-2006, 22:27 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 6-Apr-2006, 13:21.