ENGLAND U21 LOSE TO SCOTLAND

By Alanquin
July 1 2003

England lost their final match in the Under 21 Rugby World Cup to Scotland by 33 – 22 and falling to eighth place in the rankings. That is two places worse than they started out and reflects losses to Australia, France, Wales and Scotland and a solitary win against Japan.

Scotland went on the attack from the start, running hard at England, and the first try came within 5 minutes. The penalty count began to rise rapidly against England for offences that did not seem to attract the same response from the South African referee when committed by their opponents. Despite this England began to try to apply pressure to the Scots defence and a fine run by Winnan led to Chris Bell scoring a good try which Winnan converted to give England the lead 7 – 5.

The penalty count continued to rise against England to six penalties to one when Scotland recovered the lead after 20 minutes to 7 – 8. England managed to find a little fluency and a good break by their fly-half led to fluent passing to the right wing where Tom Williams crossed to score in the corner. The conversion was missed but England led by 12 – 8.

On the half-hour Scotland went offside at a ruck formed from a lineout inside their 22-metre line on the right hand side. A quick tap penalty was stopped a metre short of the line and the ensuing ruck saw Holford score by the posts and after the extra points were added the lead was 19 – 8.

With half time approaching, a yellow card reduced England to 14 men and banished No. 8 Hart to the sin-bin. Scotland pressure created an overlap and two missed tackles brought a converted try and the half time score to 19 – 15.

England started the second half clearly intending to widen the gap and for much of the first twenty minutes were camped inside the Scotland 22 metre line but the defence held firm and they were unable to score. The whistle continued to blow with even greater regularity and resulted in penalties scored by both sides. After the penalty count had reached 25 and had more or less equalised itself, Scots pressure produced another try and they took the lead 22 – 23 despite being reduced to 14 by a yellow card.

In spite of England’s efforts to reply, Scotland kept the pressure on them and eventually a poor clearance kick allowed a good counter attack from deep, the ball passing along their three quarters and missed tackles allowed another try which was converted to open up an eight point lead 22 – 30

With 10 minutes to go Andy Reay came on as a substitute to produce an all Harlequin three-quarter line but another penalty to Scotland, kicked from the centre spot put the game beyond England at 22 – 33.

So, I think, this long season can finally be taken to have ended. It was a disappointing end watching England lose so consistently. However, this team will improve and 18 of the squad will still be eligible for this event next year.