Under-20s ‘in a better place’ but Murray knows that the challenge ahead remains a daunting one

Scotland Under-20 head coach Kenny Murray believes his squad are “definitely in a better place” than this time last year, but has warned that their agegrade Six Nations rivals are “continually moving forward”.

And he says Scottish Rugby still has an “awful lot of work to do” in terms of improving the pathway system if the u nd er-20s are to compete regularly against the top nations at this level.

In 2023, the under-20s lost four out of five games in the

Six Nations, including an 82-7 humbling to eventual tournament winners Ireland at Scotstoun. Then, at the World Trophy in Kenya last summer, they were handed a shock 37-26 defeat by Uruguay to end their hopes of promotion back to the top table World Championship event.

An under-20s team – under the Future XV name – was then entered into the part-time professional Super Series Championship domestic event between July and November. They lost all 12 games, conceding 543 points in the process.

Murray named a 35-man squad for the upcoming Six Nations yesterday and said: “We are definitely in a better place than we were this time last year and we are closing the gap on the teams above us, but we still have an awful lot of work to do with our pipeline to be able to give us a larger numbers of players to pick from at this level.

“We are closer to the other teams, but the teams that are ahead of us are not staying static, they are continually moving forward. We have been trying to get guys ready to play the likes of France [who are the age-grade World champions and come to Edinburgh on February 9] and I watched the European Cup at the weekend and there were under-20 players [from other nations] playing all over at that level. We have a lot more [under20s] guys in those [professional] environments now, but the challenge we have is that we only have two pro teams.”

First up is Wales away on February 2 and Edinburgh Rugby’s Boroughmuir backrow product Liam Mcconnell has been named as captain.

Visit scotsman.com/rugby to see the U20 squad in full