14-IN-A-WOE
Young Scots haven’t won a game in TWO YEARS
Scotland Under-20 head coach Kenny Murray admits he has no ‘magic wand’ to solve the crisis engulfing the SRU agegrade system.
the defeat to Ireland was the 14th in a row for the Under-20 team and they haven’t won since a 52-17 success against Wales back in March 2020.
the Irish ran in seven tries against a Scotland side that scored three of their own.
the Scots lost all four of their Summer Series matches in Italy, with a 55-17 hammering from Georgia setting alarm bells ringing in the corridors of Bt Murrayfield, as well as defeats to the hosts and Wales.
What is worrying for the Scottish game in general is that the Under-20 team is supposed to provide a regular supply of players for the national side but there isn’t anybody — apart from back-row ollie leatherbarrow — that catches the eye in the current crop, with the 2023 World cup just over a year away.
Murray, who also has the responsibility of making sure there is a conveyor belt of talent coming through to the national side in his role as ‘Player transition’ chief, admitted the age-grade system in Scotland was ‘way off it’ and needed to improve.
He did praise his players for making the final score at least respectable against an Irish outfit that was 24 unanswered points up after just 16 minutes.
the Scotland Under-20 head coach, when asked about the poor start, said: ‘there was a car accident outside the stadium, so we never got here until pretty much until an hour before kick-off. We were under a bit of pressure in the warm-up and it was just a bit flat. It was a really disappointing start and when I was sitting up there after 15 to 20 minutes, I had my head in my hands.’
the Irish got their first try after just 90 seconds through centre daniel Hawkshaw, with prop Scott Wilson, winger aitzol King and Sam Prendergast also going over within the first 20 minutes. Patrick Harrison went over for his first of two tries to get the Scots on the scoreboard. Fionn Gibbons scored straight from the re-start which left Murray furious.
‘they got a try which should have been chalked off,’ he said. ‘our boys were off the pitch getting water, so the game shouldn’t have been allowed to restart. It was a ten-point game at the end, which, considering the poor start we had, is a testament to the boys and how they recovered.’
Ireland scored in the second half through Shay Mccarthy and diarmuid Mangan and, with the game in the bag, used all their replacements which allowed leatherbarrow to score a late consolation try for Scotland.
‘The big thing I spoke to the boys about before the game was about having some character, showing some fight and staying together as a group,’ said Murray. ‘these were the three things we had to do to compete today and I thought it was a great effort to come back and fight through that but we’ve got to be better at not making so many individual errors.’
The Scotland Under-20 team won’t play again until the agegrade Six nations in February and between now and then Murray will deliver a report on the failings of the current age-grade set-up.
‘We need to be a lot better and if I am being brutally honest, we are way off it,’ he said. ‘Physically, if you look at the other teams, we are struggling at the moment.
‘We’ve got to work hard to get in a position where we are able to compete. We need to be better conditioned. We need players playing at the right level regularly.
‘We need guys in full-time rugby environments. You look at the Ireland team we played there, they are all attached to leinster, Ulster and Munster.
‘there is no magic wand. But we need guys in full-time rugby because we’re comparing apples and pears when you bring them back to international rugby at Under-20s level.’