Scotland under-20’s hopes of an historic triple-crown ended tonight as they lost 20-6 to England at the Sixways Stadium.
Scotland opened the scoring after four minutes when their hosts were penalised at the breakdown following a lineout. Robbie McMcGowan converted, 0-3.
England enjoyed the bulk of both territory and possession in the early stages and they were rewarded for going through the phases with an eight minute try through centre through centre Henry Trinder, which stand-off Rob Miller converted, 7-3.
Scotland lock Nick Campbell PICTURED escaped from a break by the Scot’s scrum-half but Campbell was then penalised for holding on in the tackle. Miller missed the penalty.
After 16 minutes England scored their second try through flanker Jamie Gibson. He rounded off a fine burst by his number 8 Chris York who released him through an audacious one handed flick pass. Miller missed the conversion, 12-3.
Kickers McGowan and Miller missed kicking opportunities to stretch their side’s tally before making amends for their preceding errors with a penalty a piece to see out the half 15-6.
Half time: 15-6
Keen to get their triple-crown hopes back on track, Scotland’s intentions were clear through repeated efforts to maintain possession and play ball in hand rugby however the attack minded backs were caught out by a well placed kick in to space.
Try-scorer Trinder collected well on the bounce and fed the ball inside to wing George Lowe for the unopposed unconverted score, 20-6.
Scotland continued to battle hard but the experienced English maintained their lines and were quick to capitalise on turnover opportunities and kick any resurgent attempts from their 22 back into Scotland territory.
The physical nature of the contest resulted in a prolonged arm wrestle in mid-section of the park with errors on both sides becoming increasingly frequent as hard tackles knocked the ball from hands in contact which gradually became the story of the latter stages of the second-half as England saw out the game for the win.
Full time: 20-15
Following the match Scotland head coac,h Eamon John, said: “We met a really good England side on the night. They had made a number of changes and showed us a lot of respect by bringing back their Guinness Premiership players – credit to them, they had a lot of experience.
“In the first half we just couldn’t get our starting points right, on the set piece we were under a lot of pressure and we played too much without the ball.
“I thought in the second half we had a bit more of the ball but over the piece England were the better team than us on the night.
“The 6 Nations is exactly that, a campaign with six teams, it’s not about one game and I think that we’ve set milestones at this level so they can very proud, but tonight there will be the lessons we can learn.
“This group has a lot to look forward to, we can take a lot of confidence from the campaign into the World Cup but moving forward into the bigger picture I am sure there’s some players here that’ll raise Murrayfield in future years and hopefully they’ll be successful there too.”
Scotland under-20 team to face England at the Sixways Stadium, Worcester on 20 March (kick-off 8pm)
15 Robbie McGowan (Stirling County)
14 Paul Loudon (Durham University and Edinburgh Academicals) VICE CAPTAIN
13 Ashleah McCulloch+ (Aberdeen Grammar Rugby)
12 Robbie Johnston (Leeds University and Leeds Carnegie)
11 Adam McKenzie (Northumbria University)
10 Andrew White+ (Glasgow Hawks)
9 Henry Pyrgos (Loughborough University)
1 Gavin Cameron+ (Boroughmuir)
2 Finlay Gilles+ (Heriot’s)
3 David Morton (Bridgwater)
4 Nick Campbell+ (Glasgow Hawks)
5 Richard Gray (Glasgow Warriors) CAPTAIN
6 Struan Dewar+ (Heriot’s)
8 Stuart McInally* (Watsonians)
7 Chris Fusaro* (Heriot’s)
Replacements
16 Ryan McConnell+ (Peebles) on for Gilles
17 Douglas Orr+ (Haddington) on for Morton
18 James Taylor (Loughborough University and Dundee HSFP)
19 Tom Drennan+ (Edinburgh Academicals) on for Cameron
20 Peter Jericevich* (Glasgow Hawks)
21 Peter Horne* (West of Scotland) on for White
22 Grant Anderson* (Ayr) on for McKenzie
* = denotes National Academy

This article was posted on 21-Mar-2009, 08:40 by Hugh Barrow.