Scotland kicked off their World Rugby U20 Championships with a hugely impressive 15-10 win over Australia yesterday.
Second half tries from Glasgow prop Zander Fagerson and Hawick’s Darcy Graham, the latter a magnificent solo effort through a maze of defenders, were enough to win the game against 14-man Australia.
The young Wallabies had their numbers reduced when centre Campbell Magnay was sent off early in the second half for a second yellow card. His first offence had been a tip tackle early in the first half and over-enthusiasm did for him in the second with a neck roll on Adam Hastings that was also worthy of a yellow.
An assured performance from Hastings at stand-off kept Scotland playing in the right parts of the field, and despite the pack struggling somewhat at the scrum when loosehead Murray McCallum went off, they held on for a memorable victory.
The back-row trio of Ritchie, Smith and Miller – the latter a fifth-minute replacement for Lewis Wynne, was imperious, while the exciting second row pairing of Andy Davidson and Scott Cummings carried hard and marshalled the set-piece well.
Behind the pack, Blair Kinghorn was a steadying influence at full-back, while Hugh Fraser controlled the tempo well despite kicking a lot of possession away. As is common with a Scottish age grade side, the scramble defence had to be up to scratch with centres Hutchison and Galbraith making a lot of covering tackles. Positively though, the impressive Australian back three didn’t cut them open as often as they would have planned to despite plenty of ball to run at the navy shirts with.
Head coach John Dalziel was delighted with the win.
He said: “The result is really special and I’m really pleased for the boys as they’ve put in so much work ahead of the game.
“A lot of people may have thought we were the underdogs, but there’s real belief here.”
Their second pool match, against England, takes place on Saturday.