Scotland Under-20s blasted on social media as Kenny Murray reveals impact on squad

Some of the Scotland under-20 rugby players have been “blasted” on social media and have had a “pretty tough” few days since the Uruguay defeat, according to head coach Kenny Murray.

Scotland head coach Kenny Murray.

The young Scots had to beat the South Americans on Tuesday in Kenya to make sure of progressing through to the final from Pool A. They did not manage to do that, slumping to a 37-26 defeat to their fired-up opponents meaning that Scotland will not be getting promoted to the top-tier World Rugby Championship competition for 2024.

Since the final whistle blew at the Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi a number of journalists, pundits and supporters have taken to various social media platforms to vent their anger at the youth development structures put in place by Scottish Rugby. While most of the anger has been aimed at the governing body’s hierarchy, Murray has revealed that some of the players have felt the brunt too.

“The first two days after the game were pretty tough,” Murray said. “The biggest thing for young players these days is social media, they read it and they are getting blasted on social media, so we try to get them to stay off that sort of stuff and focus on rugby.

“It is difficult for us to control it because the articles that get written by media and the comments that get made are quite tough. At the end of the day people are allowed to say what they want to say, they don’t understand the context, but from our point of view we just have to make sure that the players are not listening and reading too much. That is the world we live in unfortunately, boys’ lives are controlled a lot by social media and we just have to control that as much as we can.”

Tighthead prop Callum Norrie, second-row Jake Parkinson, back-rowers Monroe Job (debut) and Sam Derrick and winger Kerr Johnston all come into the starting XV for the Samoa game. There were a number of injuries picked up against Uruguay including back-row men Jonny Smith (dead leg), Jonny Morris (shoulder) and winger Logan Jarvie (shoulder). With centre Kerr Yule (shoulder) still injured and scrum-half Hector Patterson ill, back replacements are thin on the ground. As a result, Will Robinson has flown out to join the squad and arrived late on Thursday evening and he will be on the bench.

Meanwhile, Murray believes the FOSROC Future XV which makes its part-time professional Super Series Championship debut this weekend will “be a good thing going forward”. He said: “We need to get our young guys playing at the highest level as often as possible, there is no doubt about that in my mind. The more we do that, the more prepared we are going to be. When we go to play France and England in the under-20s Six Nations come February and March I would much rather our guys had experienced tough rugby. We can’t keep playing teams like that with guys that have been playing National One or Premiership rugby, if we think that is the way ahead then we are kidding ourselves on - that is the reality in our country.”

The Samoa match kicks off at 10m UK time on Sunday and will be streamed live via Rugby Africa and the Kenya Rugby Union.

Squad: Dan King; Kerr Johnston, Ben Salmon, Findlay Thomson, Finn Douglas; Andrew McLean, Ben Afshar (co-captain); Craig Davidson, Corey Tait, Callum Norrie, Ruaraidh Hart, Jake Parkinson, Liam McConnell (co-captain), Monroe Job, Sam Derrick. Subs: Finn Duraj, Robbie Deans, Oliver Minnis, Eddie Erskine, Archie Falconer, Finlay Burgess, Will Robinson, Matt Reid.