THREE debutants will take the field for Scotland Under-20s today as they get their Six Nations Summer Series under way with a Pool B match against their Welsh counterparts.
The new boys are the two wingers, Kerr Johnston of Gala and Ryan Daley of Watsonians, along with back-row forward Liam McConnell of Boroughmuir Bears. Four substitutes - Iain Carmichael, Ben Afshar, Gabe Jones and Euan Groenewald - could all make their debuts off the bench.
Scotland were beaten in all five of their matches in this year’s Under-20s Six Nations, but head coach Kenny Murray is hopeful that the injection of new blood will help the team break that losing run. “Liam, Kerr and Ryan have been excellent since they have joined up with our group, and they thoroughly deserve to make their debuts this weekend,” Murray said yesterday.
“Our game against Wales in the Six Nations was close. We were right in it until near the end. So we hope to be competitive again and this time go that step further."
Scotland's other matches in Pool B will be against hosts Italy next Thursday then against Georgia on Wednesday 6 July. Pool A consists of England, France, South Africa and Ireland. After the pool stage, the winners of A and B will then play each other, second will play second and so on in the cross-pool matches on Tuesday 12. All games will be streamed on the Six Nations U20 YouTube channel, while Scotland’s matches will also be streamed on the Scottish Rugby website.
Scotland Under-20s (v Wales Under-20s at the Stadio di Monigo, Treviso, today [Saturday] 4pm BST): K Clark; K Johnston, D Munn, A Stirrat, R Daley; C Townsend, M Redpath; A Rogers, G Hiddleston, C Norrie, J Taylor, M Williamson, L McConnell, R Tait (captain), O Leatherbarrow. Substitutes: P Harrison, I Carmichael, G Scougall, J Spurway, T Brown, B Afshar, E Cunningham, G Jones, M Deehan, E Groenewald, B Salmon.
