Supporters will “certainly see the difference” when it comes to the fitness and physicality levels of the Scotland under-20 squad this year compared to last, says vice-captain Ruaraidh Hart.

The young Scots will be in Colwyn Bay on Friday evening to take on their Welsh counterparts at Stadiwm CSM looking to start their age-grade Six Nations campaign in style. In 2023, the under-20s lost four out of five games in the Six Nations, including an 82-7 humbling to eventual tournament winners Ireland. And then, at the World Trophy in Kenya last summer, they were beaten 37-26 by Uruguay to end their hopes of promotion back to the top table World Championship event.

As a result, there has been a lot of soul searching going on within the governing body over how to improve the pathways system and one idea was to put an under-20s team into the part-time professional Super Series during the second half of last year. Results may not have been positive, but second-row Hart played in a number of the games against clubs such as Ayrshire Bulls and Watsonians and feels the experience has left his team mates and him more battle hardened ahead of this Six Nations.

Scotland's Ruaridh Hart and his team-mates take on Wales Under-20 in Colwyn Bay.

“I think it has been really good gaining that experience,” 19-year-old Birkmyre product Hart, who is now a member of the Glasgow Warriors academy, said. “From a strength and conditioning standpoint, most of the boys to have been in pro environments in recent months [as part of academy set ups] and playing Futures and you can certainly see the difference in terms of numbers in the gym and speeds being recorded across the squad.

“Everyone has been going well in the gym and on the pitch in training and we have a lot more experience coming into this environment now. We have a number of players that played last year, have since played Futures and been in those pro environments so we have taken a lot of learnings from that and we have managed to play quite a few minutes in the last few months. We have also been able to spend more time together and we have gained experience playing against big, physical teams that has prepared us well for the Six Nations.”

Hart and centre Geordie Gwynn (Ealing Trailfinders/Brunel University) have been selected as vice-captains to back-up skipper Liam McConnell. Hart added: “Last year we had a lot of boys like myself who were playing in the Premiership [he was with Glasgow Hawks] and then we came up against these really big dominant packs at under-20 level and it was a bit of a shock to the system. Now we are ready to really front up.”

There are nine Edinburgh Rugby players in the matchday 23, seven from Glasgow Warriors, five exiles and two Super Series players. Of the new faces, Freddy Douglas and Tom Currie in the back-row linking up with McConnell are set to be ones to watch as could stand-off Isaac Coates be. Head coach Kenny Murray said: “The under-20 Six Nations is always an exciting time of year and the players have put in a lot to get to this point – we can’t wait to see them out on the pitch now. ”

The game kicks off at 6.45pm and will be live on BBC iPlayer.

Scotland under-20: Fergus Watson; Kerr Johnston, Geordie Gwynn, Kerr Yule, Amena Caqusau, Isaac Coates, Murdoch Lock; Robbie Deans, Elliot Young, Ollie Blyth-Lafferty, Euan McVie, Ruaraidh Hart, Liam McConnell (C), Freddy Douglas, Tom Currie. Subs: Jerry Blyth-Lafferty, Alex O’Driscoll, Callum Norrie, Archie Clarke, Monroe Job, Jonny Morris, Eric Davey, Jack Hocking.

Scotland Under-20s expect improvement in fitness and physicality as they bid to recover from poor 2023