Junior World Championship: Scotland 12-17 Argentina

PETER Wright’s young Scots battled back bravely against Argentina in their final pool match of the IRB Junior World Championships in Cape Town yesterday, but a late try was not enough to rein in the surprise pool winners.

Scorers: Scotland U20s: Tries – Bhatti, Eadie; Con – Leonard. Argentina U20s: Tries – Ezcurra 2, Ramella; Con – Ramella.

The coach had changed nine of his line-up to give all of his squad a taste of world championship rugby as part of a commitment to expose more youngsters to international intensity. It will also ensure freshness for the play-offs for ninth to 12th places, starting against Italy on Sunday.

Argentina dominated the early stages and took a 12-0 lead into the break. Tommy Allan, of the nearby Western Province academy, was moved to stand-off but struggled to fire the backs as his pack fought to compete with a big Argentinian eight, not helped by the sin-binning of skipper Fergus Scott after 27 minutes. Allan also missed a penalty attempt in the first half.

With Harry Leonard on in the second half the Scots finished brightly with Stirling County prop Jamie Bhatti and No 8 Mitch Eadie making the most of good forward play to score tries. But Argentina openside Leandro Ramella had started the second half with a third try for his side, following a first-half brace from scrum-half Felipe Ezcurra and, despite Argentina losing prop Mariano Sanchez to a yellow card with five minutes to go, that kept them just out of reach.

Wright said: “We made too many errors and let Argentina get in our faces. In the first half we never had the ball for more than two phases. It’s frustrating because we played so well in the second half. Giving away the try after the break lost us the game but, when we did retain the ball for four or five phases, the threat we posed got greater.