John Jeffrey highlighted some positives from Scotlands U20 team after watching the side suffer a 27-10 defeat to Wales at Rodney Parade and believes the players are learning valuable lessons from the tournament.

After falling victim to a flurry of early Welsh scores, Scotland bravely responded with prop Gary Strain powering over and Stephen McColls boot did the rest to make it 17-10 in Wales favour.

But after the break Wales cranked up the pressure and racked up another 10 points to leave Scotland without a win after the opening two matches of the tournament.

Nevertheless team manager Jeffrey admits he was pleased with the response shown by the side after facing such an insurmountable task early on and says the team will put the defeat down to experience.

Jeffrey said: The disappointing thing was we allowed ourselves to be 17-0 early on. At that point, we were looking down the barrel of a gun.

But the good thing is that we managed to get back into it; we played some good rugby and got it back to 17-10.

Then we made some more cardinal errors though when we werent even under pressure and let them back in. Then the game was away from us.

But Wales played very well. Their skills were good and they scored a couple of very good tries.

It is going to be a learning process for them and they are going to have to learn pretty quickly. The games come around pretty thick and fast.

After France and Wales we are probably at the bottom of the pile I would imagine, but we are away to Italy in two weeks time so that should be a tough test.

Scotlands U20 team produced a spirited performance at Rodney Parade but ended up on the receiving end of a 27-10 by Wales in the 6 Nations tournament.

After Wales had chalked up a 17-0 lead early on, Colin Robertsons side found themselves playing catch up in difficult circumstances.

But prop Gary Strain managed to drive over from close range to reduce the deficit with Stephen McColls boot adding the extras.

Nevertheless any hopes of a revival were destroyed when Daniel Evans scored a try for the home team after half-time and Wales Daniel Biggar compounded the defeat with a penalty.

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This article was posted on 8-Feb-2008, 22:51 by Hugh Barrow.