U20s: Improved Scotland punished by early Irish onslaught

Yesterday at 10:58 AM

Scotland U20s suffered their second consecutive defeat of the campaign in 33-15 defeat to Ireland. Giving themselves a mammoth task after conceding four tries with just over a quarter of the game played.

Daniel Green of Ulster popped up a short ball to Charlie Molony who raced under the posts with less than two minutes on the clock.

After intense pressure on Scottish lines, Ireland changed tack from short bursts from the forwards as Sam Wisniewski produced a deft cross field kick to see Molony in for his second try of the game on 13 minutes.

Four minutes later the 2023 winners were in again with Billy Corrigan touching down from a pick and go with Leinster’s Wisniewski converting to bring the score up to 21-0.

By the 22nd minute Ireland had themselves a bonus point and Molony a hat-trick with captain Éanna McCarthy putting the full-back turned winger through for an unconverted score.

Scotland finally responded to the onslaught through winger Fergus Watson of Glasgow Warriors dotting down in the corner after an excellent offload from Jack Brown with Mathew Urwin unable to add the extras.

Not letting the rain nor the interval halt their momentum, Joe Roberts finished off a driving maul from a line-out five metres but Urwin again struggled from the tee to leave the score at 26-10.

Mere seconds after coming onto the field, Munster’s Oisin Minogue was the finisher of a well worked move from the line-out with Green adding the extras to give Ireland a twenty-three point lead.

That lead was cut down by half-time substitute Harry Patterson who, having first made contact with the ball near the halfway mark, did ever so well to kick the ball repeatedly to the line before securing Scotland’s third try to bring the score back to 33-15 as Urwin missed his third conversion of the night.

Scotland’s early attacks were stunted by inaccuracy at the line-out. Twice on the Irish 22 after penalties they presented the visitors with an all too simple exit.

However, they showed great resolve to fight their way back into the game and despite defeat, continue to narrow the gap between the two age-grade sides, having lost 36-0 last year and 82-7 in 2023.

They will look to earn their first win of the competition in two weeks as they travel to face holders England.

Ireland meanwhile bounced back from their defeat to England last week and put their hopes of regaining the title back on track with a trip to Wales up next.

Line-ups:

Scotland U20: Brown, Rogers, Ventisei (c), Yule, Watson, Urwin, Cowan, McKenna, Roberts, Blyth-Lafferty, Moss, Halkon, Lindsay, Allen, Logan

Replacements: Stephen, Shearer, Stewart, Godsell, Duncan, Patterson, Wolfenden, Moncrieff

Ireland U20: Green, Molony, O’Leary Kareem, Fahy, Mangan, Wisniewski, Logan, Bohan, Walker, Mullan, Ronan, Corrigan, Foy, Power, McCarthy (c)

Replacements: Magee, Moore, McAllister, Walsh, Minogue, Wootton, Hicks, Smyth

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