It was a pretty tough night for Scotland down in Colwyn Bay. Looking back to last season though the U20s shipped 65 points to Wales at home in the 6 Nations – before going on to achieve a record-breaking 5th place finish at the World Rugby Championships. Hopefully this group can manage a similar improvement given more time together. Trying to look on the positive side of things here are the player ratings from Round 1.
15. Paddy Dewhirst: Made the most metres of any player on the Scottish side. Kicking from hand was very good and for spells helped the team maintain strong field position – 7/10
14. Sam Yawayawa: Tried hard to get involved but at times a bit peripheral to the action with Scotland struggling for good attacking ball – 5/10
13. Mark New: Only touched the ball 5 times and never really got to show his skills in attacks on what must have been a frustrating night – 5/10
12. Stafford McDowell: The side’s most experienced player was unsurprisingly their main outlet and he generally got over the gainline – 6/10
11. Kyle Rowe: Came off his wing looking for work (and looked positive when he found it) but he was starved of ball for long periods – 5/10
10. Callum McLelland: Like Dewhirst his kicking from hand was very good. Will be interesting to see him playing closer to the gainline in future. The only Scottish back to make a clean break – 6/10
9. Kaleem Barreto: His service looked very sharp and he looked confident, barking orders to keep the forwards under control. Tried to play with a high tempo but limited opportunities – 7/10
1. Shaun Gunn: Started out strong and it even looked like Scotland might get the nudge against a pretty monstrous Welsh pack. Most defenders beaten of any Scot with 3 – 6/10
2. Robbie Smith (c): His work in the loose was strong but the lineout was a real struggle all night. He’s hardly the first young Scot to have issues in this area. Do the SRU need to employ the throwing in equivalent of kicking guru Dave Alred to deal with the mechanical and mental aspects of this area? – 4/10
3. Finlay Richardson: Solid first half in trying circumstances. Tired a bit in the second half when he was possibly a bit exposed by the young Scots’ injury woes in this position – 5/10
4. Ewan Johnson: Volume of work from both locks was good and he tried manfully to stem the Welsh tide. There just seemed to be no way for the young Scots to get their hands on the ball at times – 6/10
5. Jamie Hodgson: Made an impressive number of tackles – 25 out of 28 with no other player attempting more than 18. Also the primary lineout option with 5 takes and 1 steal – 7/10
6. Archie Erskine: The stand out player for Scotland. Following on from his predecessors in the 6 shirt, Tom Dodd and Jamie Ritchie, he did a bit of everything but his main talent was being a tough, nuggety, awkward bugger at the breakdown who won turnovers and wound up the opposition – 7/10
7. Guy Graham: Flung himself about with reckless abandon but often to no avail as the Welsh just continually recycled possession until Scotland ran out of defenders – 5/10
8. Devante Onojaife: He may have been English just a few short months ago but let’s face it – that’s never been an impediment to a successful Scottish rugby career… An interesting prospect but Scotland need to have him carrying a lot more as he did late on to good effect – 6/10
Replacements:
Charlie Chapman was the only player to get and extended run, doing a solid job at scrum half but not quite matching Barreto’s influence. The stand out was probably loosehead Nathan McBeth – mainly for the fact that his presence finally meant Scotland had someone on the pitch with a similar stature to the Welsh front row!