Good and bad news for Scotland U20 ahead of World Championships amid Freddy Douglas blow

There was good and bad news for Scotland Under-20s ahead of their World Rugby U20 Championship opener against England in Italy.

On the plus side, the spectre of relegation has been removed because the tournament is expanding from 12 to 16 teams next year. The young Scots have worked hard to return to the top-tier tournament so knowing they are going to remain there comes as a relief.

On the debit side, they will go into the England match without Freddy Douglas, their talismanic co-captain who has suffered a concussion.

Scotland U20s' Oliver Duncan (L) and Jack Brown. | SNS Group / SRU

Douglas, 20, is already a full Scotland international and made a big impact on Kenny Murray’s under-20 side when he returned from injury midway through the U20 Six Nations, scoring three tries in the Scots’ final three matches.

The hope is that the openside flanker will be available for Scotland’s second game at the World Championship, against Australia next Friday. In the meantime, Edinburgh’s Oliver Duncan moves over from six to seven to cover Douglas’ absence and Montpellier’s Charlie Moss comes in to the side at six.

Coping without Freddy Douglas

“Freddy took a wee bit of a bang in a maul in training,” explained Murray. “Following the return-to-play protocols and all things going well, he'll be available for game two.

“We were probably going to start Freddy at seven but it doesn't really weaken us too much. Charlie and Oliver Duncan are both good sixes. It gives us a bit more size as well which, against England, is obviously something you want to have.”

Scotland U20 head coach Kenny Murray. | SNS Group / SRU

As well as England and Australia, Scotland will also face South Africa in Pool A. It is a daunting draw and there will be two play-off classification games which follow the group stage to decide the final positions.

In previous tournaments, the 12th team were demoted to the second-tier World Rugby U20 Trophy competition, a fate which befell Scotland in 2019. A combination of Covid and failure to win promotion in 2023 meant they have remained out of the elite for six years but victory in the Trophy last summer secured their return and the absence of relegation this time has been welcomed by Murray.

“It took a wee while, but we always knew there was a possibility that it might happen this year,” said the coach. “They were looking to extend it to 16 teams, so it takes a bit of pressure off in terms of not having to worry about relegation and going into game four and five.

Atoning for heavy Six Nations defeat

“Not a lot of changes, we still want to perform well and win our games and give a good account of ourselves but we can now try to do that without the added pressure of relegation.”

England defeated Scotland 57-13 in the U20 Six Nations and are the defending world champions at this level and Murray has urged his team to give a better account of themselves in Verona on Sunday than they did in Newcastle in February.

“The England game in the Six Nations was probably our worst performance of the tournament,” he said. “I don't think we gave a good account of ourselves in that game and nothing really went for us. We want to go out there on Sunday and have a much better performance and have a real crack at them.”

Conditions will be tough, with temperatures in northern Italy above 30 degrees.

Scotland U20 (v England U20, Payanini Center, Verona, Sunday, 2.30pm BST, live on RugbyPassTV

15. Jack Brown (Edinburgh); 14. Nairn Moncrieff (Edinburgh); 13. Johnny Ventisei (Glasgow; capt), 12. Kerr Yule (Glasgow), 11. Fergus Watson (Glasgow); 10. Matthew Urwin (Glasgow), 9. Noah Cowan (Brunel University/Ealing Trailfinders); 1. Jake Shearer (Glasgow), 2. Joe Roberts (Glasgow), 3. Ollie Blyth-Lafferty (Edinburgh). 4. Bart Godsell (Loughborough Univ), 5. Dan Halkon (Glasgow), 6. Charlie Moss (Montpellier), 7. Oliver Duncan (Edinburgh), 8. Reuben Logan (Northampton).

Replacements: 16. Seb Stephen (Glasgow), 17. Oliver McKenna (Glasgow), 18. Jamie Stewart (Edinburgh), 19. Dylan Cockburn (Melrose). 20. Mark Fyffe (Univ of Edinburgh), 21. Oliver Finlayson-Russell (Univ of St Andrews), 22. Hector Patterson (Edinburgh), 23. Jack Hocking (Edinburgh).