THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS

Published Date: 10 June 2011
By ALAN LORIMER
in PADUA
Scotland begin their Junior World Championship campaign in Padua tonight when they face South Africa in the Pool C match at the Stadio Plebicito (kick-off 7.10pm BST), knowing that the Baby Boks have inflicted massive damage on the Scots in the past.
At the inaugural under-20 championship in Wales Scotland went down 72-3 at Wrexham and in the process lost their young lock Richie Gray with a broken jaw, while last year in Argentina the South Africans were no less forgiving as they powered their way to a 73-0 win.

In a final preparation for the championship, Scotland held several joint training sessions with Australia last week in Verese, concluding the co-operative exercise with a practice match against the young Wallabies, that should have given the Scots a harder edge.

"There were a lot of positives from that game with Australia," said Scotland under-20 coach Peter Wright. "But we have to take them into the South Africa match. We have to defend well and upset their skills set and in attack vary our game and hopefully get the ball to the wider channels where I think we could be dangerous."

South Africa come into the championship without the benefit of an equivalent to the under-20 Six Nations Championship but they did achieve a confidence building win over Eastern Province Kings at Port Elizabeth last month.

The Baby Boks have already given indications that they will use their powerful forwards to make inroads. "We know what our strengths are, and we'll be silly to deviate away from that, be it against Scotland or any team in this competition," said South Africa coach Dawie Theron.

"There has been plenty of talk in Italy about how teams will play an expansive game. To me, there's different opinion that defines an expansive approach and we as a team have our own thoughts and plans around expansive rugby".

For the opening championship game coach Peter Wright has handed the captaincy to the Glasgow and Scotland A stand-off Duncan Weir.

This article was posted on 9-Jun-2011, 23:16 by Hugh Barrow.