Scotland's young guns taken down by England in Six Nations clash as Dalriada Cup goes to Ireland

Scotland under-20 battled hard and gave as good as they got for large parts of the contest, but ultimately lost their round two age-grade Six Nations clash to England at Hive Stadium last night 33-17.

After a pretty promising start for the hosts, England took the lead after nine minutes when scrum-half Lucas Friday burst through the defence, chipped ahead and then stand-off Finn Keylock won the race to dot down and score an unconverted try.

An overthrown lineout from Scotland near their own line was gobbled up by English hooker Jimmy Staples at the tail and his score was converted by Keylock.

Scotland Under-20s came up short against England. | SNS Group / SRU

Scotland’s heads could have gone down at that stage, but not a bit of it and, by the 33rd minute, they were level. Their forwards were carrying hard and that was forcing England to give away a few penalties. In the 28th minute, scrum-half Hamish MacArthur scored a five-pointer and then, five minutes later, Rory McHaffie came off his wing to good effect to score. MacArthur converted and it was 12-12.

At that same time England back-row Seb Kelly was yellow carded, but it was 14-man England who scored next when captain Connor Treacey went over for a try and Keylock converted to make it 19-12. With the clock in the red before the interval, Scotland loosehead prop Jamie Stewart’s try made it 19-17 and ‘game on’.

England’s bonus point fourth try came in the 45th minute when James Pater, the full-back, launched a counter attack, exchanged passes with a team mate and scored the converted effort.

There was no quarter given in the rest of the match, but then Scotland had sub Finn Ronnie yellow carded and England’s final converted try came from replacement Will Knight.

Scotland play Wales in round three.

Meanwhile, in the Club XV match in Ireland, Scotland lost out 42-33 at Energia Park in Dublin. Centre Andrew Mitchell scored two tries and stand-off Dwain Patterson kicked a conversion, but the visitors were 35-12 down at the interval.

Mitchell, scrum-half Gregor Christie and sub Archie Barbour scored second half converted tries as Ireland lifted the Dalriada Cup.