WE’VE GOT A PROBLEM
Young Scots must play at higher level if we’re going to match our opponents, insists Murray
SCOTLAND Under-20s head coach Kenny Murray admits he feels sorry for the young players who will face the daunting task of trying to halt a miserable 13-match losing run this morning.
Their opponents will be an Ireland side who hammered them 59-5 in the Six Nations last time out, and the Scots’ chances of stopping the rot haven’t been helped by losing playmaker Christian Townsend — son of senior head coach Gregor — to injury.
Like lambs to the slaughter in the five-team summer tournament in Italy, they will gamely try to improve on last week’s 55-17 loss to Georgia, which followed defeats to Italy and Wales.
It’s a worrying trend for the future of Scottish rugby. But Murray points out that, until his youngsters start playing at a higher level in the club game, they are always likely to come out on the losing end against more streetwise opponents.
Having only taken charge at the start of the Six Nations, the head coach is actively looking to remedy his team’s lack of experience at professional level.
The Scots, for example, have seven players in their starting line-up linked with a professional club, compared to all 15 in today’s Ireland side.
‘I feel for them a wee bit,’ said Murray. ‘The biggest thing for me is trying to get more guys to play at the highest level so they can compete at Under-20s level. That is the big learning thing for me since I have taken over. For instance, the two Georgian props who played against us in our last game have signed for French Top14 clubs, so that is the standard we are competing against.
‘The Ireland team that has been announced today has players that are part of Leinster, Ulster, Munster, Connacht. A lot of their guys are training, playing at high levels and are in full-time rugby. That is what we are striving to do.
‘Super6 is the top end of our club game and we have to use it to develop our best players — and we have to ask ourselves: How do we get our guys into the full-time rugby environment?
‘Some of them involved with us are at university in England, some up here are not in full-time rugby environments. In a nutshell, what I have learned is that, if you are not playing fulltime rugby at Under-20s level, you will struggle. That is what all this is telling me.’
Murray, who has also been given the new role of SRU player-transition chief to provide a steady stream of homegrown players through the pathway system, admitted they had ‘work to do’ to make that happen — or run the risk of falling behind other nations.
‘New Zealand Under-20s beat Australia 69-12 at the weekend,’ he said. ‘Fiji lost by 60 points to Argentina. Some countries are moving forward and some are playing catch-up. So we are a bit behind and we have a bit of work to do to keep up.
‘We will look at things to make us better. It’s about getting them in the right playing environment and the other big thing here in this tournament in Italy is physical conditioning, which is massive at this level.’
Although he’s only been in the job for six months, Murray has seen enough to suggest there has to be more competition in schools rugby in particular. At the moment, he doesn’t think it’s of a high enough standard.
‘It is important to get a good playing base,’ he said. ‘It is about guys getting good competitive games of rugby from the start. You look at other countries. Irish school and club rugby as an example. Their school and club rugby is of a high standard.
‘We don’t have that standard at the moment, so we need to have more meaningful games on the pathway. For me, we need more regional games, Under-18s in particular, 19s, 20s, as we need to get the guys playing at the highest level in this country. We also need to continue to use the Super6 as a tool to develop our best players.’
Scotland captain Rhys Tait, who plays semi-pro for Boroughmuir Bears and is part of the Glasgow Warriors youth academy, says his team are desperate to bring the losing run to an end in their last game of the summer.
‘It was a tough one against Georgia but this is our last game, so there is a big motivator there,’ said the young man from Hawick. ‘We are trying to earn a bit of respect back, not only from our fans but the other teams as well as we lost a bit of that against Georgia. The thing for me is to keep our heads up and take the game to Ireland. If we don’t, it will be a repeat of last week. We will try and learn from that last game and put out the best performance that we can.’