Scotland U18 12 - 19 Wales U18: Young Scots can hold heads high after brave performance

WALES made it a clean sweep by adding victory at under-18 level to their other successes over Scotland sides this season with a polished performance at Braidholm yesterday.

But Scotland deserve massive credit for producing a brave defensive performance that stopped the stylish Welsh backline from scoring a barrel load of tries and for using what ball they did win to put pressure on their opponents.

Outstanding for Scotland in leading the resistance were scrum-half Alex Glashan, No 8 Cameron Turner and flanker Cameron Simpson. But the midfield backs, too, earned plaudits for a solid shift in the tackling department. In the line-out, George Watson’s lock Neil Irvine-Hess, voted man-of-the-match, made sure that Scotland were ahead in the touchline battle..

“This was our first outing and we can take a lot of positives from this game. We still have a few players to come into the equation and we may have a slightly different squad for next week’s game against England,” said Scotland Under-18 coach Eddie Pollock.

Scotland claimed early points with an opportunist try by Shaun MacDonald after he took advantage of a spilled ball to score under the posts with Sedbergh stand-off Ben Cooper converting. But Wales, who had dominated the early scrums, struck against the head to give centre Ben Roberts a simple score.

The Scots should then have made more of a period of pressure on the Wales line but instead it was the visitors who exploited turnover ball to create a long range try for winger Lewis Hudd, sprinting in from 60 metres and converted by stand-off Jack Maynard to give them a 12-7 interval lead.

Scotland started well in the second period with two breaks by Cooper and then an interception from Irvine-Hess that all but produced scores. Wales then looked certain to increase their lead, only to have two tries disallowed. Just as the game looked to be slipping away, Scotland came roaring back and brought the scores level with a try by Aberdeen GS winger Ed Farquharson.

However, just a minute from full time, Wales full back Hallam Amos skipped through two tackles and scored the winning try with replacement stand-off Gareth Thomas adding the conversion goal to seal a hard fought but deserved victory.