The Scotsman reports

Published Date: 12 March 2011
By Gareth Black
at Newbury
England Under-20 56

Scotland Under-20 8
ENGLAND'S youngsters marched on towards the RBS Six Nations U20 Championship with a record victory over Scotland at this level last night.

The English team, who had put 74 points on Italy and beaten Wales away 26-20 and France 19-8, showed the gulf in experience, physicality and back-line intelligence over the border to win by eight tries to one.

Coached by former Scotland A cap Rob Hunter, they opened the scoring after just four minutes through outside centre Elliot Daly from a speculative cross-kick by fly-half George Ford, and while Harry Leonard, the Boroughmuir and Edinburgh elite development squad centre, pulled back three points with a penalty, England had the clinical finish. Wing Christian Wade, Daly and captain Alex Gray all scored, before Scotland produced a heartening riposte and loosehead prop Robin Hislop drove over the line.

Harlequins hooker Rob Buchanan replied for England and with Ford's precision kicking the hosts cruised into a 27-point interval lead. The Scots, however, came out of the break fired up and took the game to England.

However, a lack of composure at the key moment after good work by Bryce and scrum-half Jamie Stevenson denied Scotland a second try, and England took advantage with prop Mako Vunipola scoring, Gray then exploiting the sin-binning of Watson to add a seventh try and Daly an eighth for his hat-trick.

Scorers: England U20: Tries: Daly 3, Wade, Gray 2, Buchanan, Vunipola; Cons: Ford 8. Scotland U20: Try: Hislop; Pen: Leonard.

England U20: B Ransom (Saracens); A Short (Worcester), E Daly (Wasps), O Farrell (Saracens), C Wade (Wasps); G Ford (Leicester), D Robson (Gloucester); M Vunipola (Bristol), R Buchanan, W Collier (both Harlequins), J Launchbury (Wasps), C Matthews (Harlequins), K Low (London Irish), M Kvesic (Worcester), A Gray (Newcastle) capt. Subs: K Britton (Gloucester), H Thomas (Sale), S Jones (Wasps), M Everard (Leicester), C Cook (Bath), J Elliot (Northampton), J Joseph (London Irish)

Scotland U20: G Bryce (Heriot's); M Doneghan (Stirling County), M Bennett (Ayr), H Leonard (Boroughmuir), K Gossman (Glasgow Hawks); S Edwards (Stirling County), J Stevenson (Westcombe Park); R Hislop (Boroughmuir), D Cherry (Team Northumbria), G Hunter (Glasgow Hawks) capt, M Eadie (Filton College), R McAlpine (West of Scotland), A Spence (Heriot's), H Watson (Leicester Tigers), J Tyas (Bath).Subs: R Ferguson (Melrose), N Fraser (Boroughmuir), A Kirkland (Glasgow Hawks), M Todd (Nottingham), D Finnie (Watsonians), J Munro (Edinburgh Accies), S Atkin (Edinburgh Accies).

This article was posted on 12-Mar-2011, 07:46 by Hugh Barrow.