Mcdowall is thrilled to get the captaincy as young Scots take on world

● South westerner is aiming follow in midfield footsteps of de Luca and Dunbar

while Cammy Hutchison has played a bit before his injury.

“I hope the fact that I was there [at the World Championship] last year will help me, usingmyage-gradeexperience to help the other guys.”

Scotland finished a best-ever fifth in Georgia last year and Redpath has named a fairly settled side for his first competitive match in his shortterm stint as coach.

There are just three changes to the starting line-up which lost to the Italians in the closing weekend of a junior Six Nations campaign which yielded a solitary win against England.

Hutchison partners Mcdowall in the centre, while hooker Finlay Scott and prop Ross Dunbar also come in. Six Nations captain Smith starts on the bench.

“Robbie has only played a half of rugby since getting injured against Ireland during the Six Nations,” explained Redpath. “He got some game time in our warm-up match last week and he did well, but I just felt he is still short of match fitness and Finlay has come into the squad and trained really well to earn this chance to start.

“Robbie is still an important part of the squad and he’ll get significant game time against Italy and we’ll take it from there with regard to selection for the Argentina game.

“I’ve had positive discussions with him and I still see him and putting himself to be first-choice hooker, but ultimately we’ve got to pick the

0 Stafford Mcdowall in action against England in the Scotland under-20s’ 24-17 win over England. team which is best prepared to go into this game.”

The Scots face three pool games in just over a week and Redpath knows squad management will be one of his biggest tests.

“We’ve got Argentina next Sunday and then England after that [7 June],” said the former Scotland scrum-half and captain. “The big focus when I came in was the first game against Italy.

“Players had to train to give themselves a chance of being in that team, but everyone in the squad will get game time somewhere along the line, so I told them to make sure they prepared well for game one and if they didn’t get picked the had to be prepared for game two and three.

“The big thing for us was to focus on Italy and make sure we got all the players on the same page for Italy. We will pick up knocks and bumps, but the key part is that it’s a 28-man squad but we have to focus on that.”

Mcdowall, meanwhile, is just hoping that a dream year so far continues to produce

SCOTLAND U20

V ITALY U20

great rugby memories. He said: “In the last 12 months things have gone by like a flash.

“I came into the World Championship last year and managed to get a stage three [BT Academy] contract off the back of it.

“Training with Glasgow this season, I have loved every