'We want more': Gregor Townsend opens up on plans for Emerging Scotland after Italy defeat

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend took plenty of positives despite watching his Emerging Scotland team lose 24-7 to Italy Under-23s.

After a level first-half, the more experienced Italians pulled away in the second half of the clash at Edinburgh’s Hive Stadium. The Scottish team was largely made up of younger players who will be eligible for Scotland Under-20s next year, although Glasgow Warriors full-back Ollie Smith stepped up his return from long-term injury by playing at full-back.

Townsend hopes to arrange more matches for his developing players and said of the outing: “That’s close to professional level and for a lot of the players, especially our players, that’s the highest level they’ve played so they would have got a lot from it. It’s just a shame we couldn’t score more points in the second half.

Scotland's Ollie Smith played more than half the match as he steps up his return from injury. | SNS Group / SRU

“I felt we had a lot of that game in the first half. Credit to Italy – at times they defended well, just like we defended well close to our line. It was a proper game. It’s not just the experience of playing at that higher level. They really impressed us during the week at training.”

“There were five under-20s there, so I’d imagine their target will be playing well for the Under 20s, and that experience of playing at a high level today should help them. And you’ve got players who played at pro level last week, others that are playing elsewhere, and a couple of club players, we just want to make sure that whatever their next challenge is and their next level of rugby, that’s been of benefit to them.

“It’s been great. It’s been a different context – not being in a hotel and being ready for a game in front of 60,000-70,000 people. But working with a group of players, coming in today and seeing their excitement at playing. And then them getting really stuck in. We want to do more of these games.”

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend was pleased with the outing. | SNS Group / SRU

Scotland’s only points of the game came in the form a try from prop Ollie Smith-Blyth on 34 minutes to break the deadlock, with Connor McAlpine adding the conversion. However, Italy replied before the break through a Marcos Gallorini try, before crossing the whitewash a further three times in the second half via captain Luca Andreani, Marco Scalabrin and Mirko Belloni. Mattia Ferrarin landed two conversions.