Scotland Under-18 33 - 13 Italy Under-18: Bennett on form as U18s beat Italians

CENTRE Mark Bennett led the charge with a hat-trick of tries as Scotland Under-18s secured a comfortable win over their Italian counterparts in the Five Nations Festival at Llandovery.

In their second fixture of the tournament, the Scots had the man-of-the-match in Bennett who turned in a fine kicking exhibition in addition to his tries.

Playing into the wind in the first-half, a solid performance from Scotland saw Bennett cross the line three times, converting two of his tries. The second-half saw further tries from Rory Sutherland and Stuart Hogg, both converted by Bennett.

"With that kind of platform going into the second-half, with the wind behind us, we could have expected to score a few more than we did," said team manager Euan Kennedy.

"The Italians were big and physical but behind the scrum, didn't give much opposition. At times there were some good individual performances. Bennett's second try, run in 50 metres from the line, was probably the best in the whole game, but we lacked consistency."

Scotland now meet Ireland in their final game on Saturday.

Scotland U18: S Hogg; J Urquhart, M Crawle, M Bennett, A Hall (Strathallan); H Leonard, J Stevenson; R Hislop, G Turner, G Robertson, S Smith, A Redmayne, R Sutherland, B Johnstone, L Seydak. Subs used: M McConnell, J Bradford, A McCall Hagan, W Kay, M Eadie, H Jones.