Scotland U18 18 - 17 Wales U18: Scots fight back

SCOTLAND made the best possible start to the European under-18 championship with an 18-17 win over Wales in the opening round of the tournament in Grenoble yesterday after trailing 17-3 early in the second half.

“This was a tremendous performance from the boys. They showed great resilience and skills to come fight back,” said Scotland Under 18 head coach, Eddie Pollock.

He added: “We made a lot of mistakes in the first half and Wales dominated to score two decent tries.”

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The Scots also had to overcome the disadvantage of two second-half sin-binnings for hooker Rory Simpson and lock James Ritchie.

Two tries by Aberdeen GSFP winger Angus Rennie in the space of two minutes turned the game for Scotland but it was a second penalty goal by Ayr full-back Gavin Lowe and his conversion that provided the winning points for the Scots.

The win means that Scotland will face England in the semi-finals on Tuesday and are guaranteed to finish at least one place better than the fifth position that they achieved last year.

Scotland Under 18: G Lowe; R Smith, A Russell, R Taylor, A Rennie; J Lang, L Earle-Wright; C Fenton, R Simpson, A McWilliam, J Ritchie, L Carmichael, N Irvine-Hess, A Miller, M Bradbury. Subs used: R Graham, R Mason, A Wallace, S Burnside, B Johnston, B Vellacot, H Slater, I Sim, R Watt.

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