ENGLAND marched to their fourth success in the Six Nations under-20 championship with a 41-15 win over a Scotland side still without a victory in the competition.
A penalty apiece by England centre Alex Goode and Scotland stand-off Ruaridh Jackson in the opening minutes suggested an even contest only for the visitors to change that notion with an easy try. Full-back Murray Allan kicked deep into the England ha
lf, but the follow-up tacklers were unable to prevent Goode from pushing forward before delivering a short pass for Seb Stegman to score.
Goode kicked the conversion and then added the extra points to a try by Noah Cato that started with Scotland being pushed off their own scrum ball ending four phases later with the host nation running out of defenders.
England then took advantage of Goode's penalty attempt rebounding off the crossbar for No8 Hugo Ellis to force his way over for his side's third try. The half ended with Scotland's Ross Samson being sin-binned before the same punishment was meted out to England lock Ben Thomas.
Scotland opened the second half encouragingly and were rewarded with a try from skipper Lewis Calder from a line-out five metres out from the England line, reminiscent of his father Jim's score against France in the 1984 Grand Slam match.
England, however, hit back quickly as scrum-half Joe Simpson scampered in from 40 metres and then Goode carved out a score for flanker Matt Cox, before converting. The second-half triple whammy was completed as Cato grabbed a second try, this time stand-off Rob Miller converting.
Scotland claimed a late try, a close-range effort from Lewis Niven, converted by James Murray.
Scotland U20s: M Allan; L Jones, C Kinloch, S Wilson, T Bury; R Jackson, R Samson; G Strain, F Brown, L Niven, J Brown, N Patrick, F McKenzie, L Calder capt, J Baird. Substitutes used: A Dixon, C Simmonds, S Burton, M Heeks, J Murray, P Loudon.
The full article contains 338 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
