SCOTLAND under-20s completed a weekend to remember for Scottish rugby after emulating their seniors by defeating Australia in the final round of the Junior World Cup at the Avchala Stadium, Tbilisi.
The win by the young Scots, only their second over the Wallaby cubs, means that Scotland finished in fifth position, their highest overall placing in the World Rugby under-20 Championship and three places above their previous best.
Against a powerful Australia side that boasted a clutch of Super Rugby players, Scotland had to draw on character and resilience after trailing 10-0 with half time approached. But in a heroic fightback Scotland scored 17 unanswered points to take a 17-10 lead going in the last quarter of the match.
Head coach, John Dalziel, praised his side’s commitment in the tackle that kept the young Wallabies at bay. He said: “Defensively we were very strong today. We focussed on defence. We also played the conditions very well. We played into a strong breeze in the first half and then in the second half we dominated through some great kicking by Conor Eastgate.”
He added: “The consensus round the ground was that the better team won. It was certainly not a lucky result. The resilience the lads showed was immense.”
Individually replacement scrum half Charlie Shiel, whose father Graham was a Scotland stand-off/centre, was the hero for the Scots, the Currie supersub scoring shortly after coming off the bench early in the second half and then grabbing an 80th minute try that secured victory for the Scots.
Australia scrum half Harrison Goddard accounted for all his side’s points, his converted try and a penalty giving the young Wallabies a 10-0 advantage as half time approached. But just before the break Eastgate kick started a points rush with a penalty goal and then the conversion goal of a second half try by Robbie Nairn made by Blair Kinghorn’s offload.
A close range try by Shiel converted by Eastgate gave the Scots a 17-10 lead, only for Goddard to slip over for his second touchdown, his conversion levelling the scores. But on the stroke of full time Shiel finished off impressive work by the Scotland forwards to score his second try, Eastgate’s conversion sealing a famous Scottish win.
In the showcase match yesterday, the Championship Cup final, New Zealand swept to a 64-17 victory over the defending champions England for the Baby Blacks to claim their sixth world title.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here