Glasgow's John Beattie has flown straight back into the Scotland U21 team for the IRB World Championship match against England in France on Saturday 17 June.

The 20 year-old back row forward joined the squad yesterday after providing injury cover for the senior Scotland tour of South Africa.

John is one of four changes to the team which beat Italy 26-10 last Tuesday. Also returning to the back row is Alan Macdonald who has recovered from a knee injury to replace Scott Newlands.

In the front row, Ryan Grant comes in for Kyle Traynor while the only change in the backs sees Ben Addison at full-back for James King. The only player unavailable for selection was Garry Law who has not recovered sufficiently from an ankle injury.

The Scots have picked up six points from their first two pool games against Italy and Australia while England, the Grand Slam winners in this year’s Six Nations, have five points after beating Fiji 34-8 and losing to New Zealand 14-29. Saturday’s match is crucial in determining their final positions among the twelve teams involved in the tournament.

Scotland U21 coach Iain Paxton said: "We're expecting a big game as we struggled against England in the Six Nations and eventually lost. But we've all been buoyed by John Beattie's arrival and feel we've prepared well and are hoping to put in a big performance this time round.

"We have to get something out of this game as every point is valuable the way the system works to decide the final places. If we don't get a point, we could suddenly find ourselves in the bottom group playing for ninth to 12th place. We can't look to others doing us favours. We must be in control of our own destiny."

Scotland U21 team to play England in the IRB U21 World Championship
at the Stade Emile Pons in Riom, France on Saturday 17 June (ko 6.00pm local time, 5.00pm BST)

15 Ben Addison (Stirling County) **

14 Cameron Johnston (Newcastle Falcons) *
13 Ben Cairns (Edinburgh Gunners and Currie) *
12 Iain Kennedy (Glasgow Warriors and Glasgow Hawks)
11 Lee Kibble (Border Reivers and Biggar )

10 David Blair (Sale Sharks) (CAPTAIN)
9 Greig Laidlaw (Jed-Forest)

1 Ryan Grant (The Army)
2 Sean Crombie (Aberdeen GSFP) **
3 David Young (Leicester Tigers)
4 James Eddie (Glasgow Warriors and Ayr)
5 Ian Nimmo (Leicester Tigers)
6 Alan MacDonald (Edinburgh Gunners) *
8 John Beattie (Glasgow Warriors) *
7 Ross Rennie (Edinburgh Gunners and Stewart’s Melville FP) **

Substitutes:

16 Kyle Traynor (Edinburgh Gunners and Boroughmuir) **
17 Innes Brown (Stirling County) **
18 Scott Newlands (Heriot's) **
19 John Barclay (Glasgow Warriors) *
20 Murray Bringhurst (Watsonians) **
21 Chris Dunlop (Durham University)
22 James King (Border Reivers and Melrose)

* indicates member of Scottish Institute of Sport
** indicates member of an area Institute of Sport

This article was posted on 16-Jun-2006, 12:49 by Hugh Barrow.