Saturday, 05 June 2010

Scotland under-20 could not repeat the 2009 Autumn Test heroics of the senior squad as they lost their opening IRB Junior World Championship match to a ruthless Australia at the Estadio CA Colon in Argentina tonight (58-13).
Scotland under-20 head coach, Eamon John, said: “Australia played with an incredible pace and skill level but I think we conceded a couple of soft scores tonight.
“We spoke at half-time about imposing our game on the match and I was happy that we got a good score but disappointingly, just as we were going for another, we lost the ball in contact and they went down the other end and scored.
“As a team we have to learn from the match and use the important lessons to become better players.”
The prolific Ozzies ran in a total of eight tries on the night with their five first-half efforts (scored by full-back Luke Morahan, centre Robbie Coleman, a brace from winger Aidan Toua and captain Jake Schatz) answered by two penalties from Scotland stand-off Duncan Weir.
HALF TIME: 36-6
Despite a much improved second-half performance, some individual errors in one-on-one situations allowed the Australians to cross for a further three tries.
The first was a hat-trick completing score from Toua before Scotland replied through winger Dougie Fife on the 68th minute which Weir converted, 39-13.
Disappointingly, as the Scots were enjoying an improved passage of play and threatening the Ozzie 22, they lost the ball in contact and the Australians (as was typical throughout their performance) countered hard and fast to see Wallaby winger Greg Jeloudev cross the whitewash.
Replacement forward Luke Jones then scored his side’s final converted try of the afternoon following some repeated pick and drives.
FINAL SCORE: 58-13
Scotland under-20 team
Tom Brown; Oliver Grove, Michael Tait, Alex Dunbar, Dougie Fife; Duncan Weir, Alex Black; Nicky Little, Alun Walker, George Hunter, Robert Harley, Robert McAlpine, Michael Maltman, David Denton, Stuart McInally CAPTAIN
Substitutes
Callum Stidston-Nott (on for McAlpine), Russell Weir (on for Black), Matthew Scott (on for Dunbar), Callum MacBurnie (on for Grove)

This article was posted on 6-Jun-2010, 06:47 by Hugh Barrow.