FIJI U21S STORM PAST SCOTLAND



Scotland under 21s were beaten by Fiji 21-19 in torrential conditions in France this afternoon to their IRB U21 World Championship campaign in tenth place.

The Scots were 7-0 up within as many minutes after David Blair converted Greig Laidlaw’s try. Shortly after Fiji scored to draw level but a converted try from Iain Kennedy and a try from Colin Goudie put Scotland back in the lead by 19-7 at half time.

Then it started to pour and as thunder and lightening split the sky, Fiji opened the floodgates scoring two further converted tries to seal the game 21-19 and secure ninth place overall while the Scots had to settle for tenth.

Scotland Under 21 team manager John Jeffrey said: “We are desperately disappointed as we had it under control at 19-7. They didn’t win it, we lost it.

Throughout the competition, we’ve put in a lot of effort and hard work for no reward. We set out our stall to finish in a higher group and when we didn’t manage that, we said we wanted to end on two wins so its disappointing not to have done that either.

“You have to take your chances at international level and close out games. At half-time, we were 14-0 up against Australia, 9-0 up against England and beating Fiji 19-7, yet we lost all three games. Mentally we have to be tougher.”

Scotland’s Cameron Johnston was taken off just before half-time after he injured his neck in a tackle. He was later taken to hospital for an x-ray as a precaution.


Scotland team v Fiji:

Colin Goudie, Cameron Johnston, (James King, 39mins), Ben Cairns, Iain Kennedy, Ben Addison, David Blair (c), Greig Laidlaw, Ryan Grant (Kyle Traynor, 56mins), Sean Crombie, David Young, James Eddie, Ian Nimmo (Scott Newlands, 61mins), Alan MacDonald, John Barclay, Ross Rennie.


Scorers:
6 minutes Greig Laidlaw try
7 minutes David Blair conversion
22 minutes Hemia Ranuku try
23 minutes Ratu Nawalu conversion
29 minutes Iain Kennedy try
30 minutes David Blair conversion
40 minutes Colin Goudie try

55 minutes Gabriele Lovobalavu try
56 minutes Ratu Nawalu conversion
60 minutes Asaeli Tikoirotuma try
61 minutes Ratu Nawalu conversion


Scotland’s results:

Friday 9 June Australia 18-14 Scotland Stade Darragon, Vichy
Tuesday 13 June Italy 10-26 Scotland Stade Darragon, Vichy
Saturday 17 June England 31-12 Scotland Stade Emile Pons, Riom
Wed 21 June Scotland 46-14 Georgia Stade Complexe du Mas, Issoire
Sunday 25 June Fiji 21-19 Scotland Stade Antonin Chastel, Thiers

This article was originally posted on 25-Jun-2006, 16:01 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 25-Jun-2006, 16:02.