Scotland Junior World Championship Campaign 2013

First topic message reminder :

Squad:
Backs: Ruairidh Young (Edinburgh Accies), Rory Hughes (Scotland 7s/Stirling County), Damien Hoyland (Boroughmuir), Jamie Farndale (Edinburgh Rugby/Edinburgh Accies), J J Kilmartin (Bath Rugby), Mark Bennett (Glasgow Warriors/Stirling County), Robbie Fergusson (Ayr), Chris Auld (Gala)*, Tommy Allan (Perpignan), Ben Cooper (Leeds Carnegie), Ali Price (Bedford Blues) and Scott Steele (Leicester Tigers).

Forwards: Jamie Bhatti (Stirling County)*, James Malcolm (GHA), Phil Cringle (Edinburgh Rugby/Stewart’s-Melville FP), Russell Anderson (Gala*), Callum Black (Edinburgh Accies), Reyner Kennedy (Stirling County), D’Arcy Rae (Ayr)*, Robbie Wilson (Boroughmuir)*, Ruairidh Leishman (Stirling County), Jonny Gray (Glasgow Warriors/Currie) CAPTAIN, Adam Sinclair (Perpignan), Alex Henderson (Boroughmuir), Adam Ashe (Glasgow Warriors/Stirling County), Tommy Spinks (London Scottish), Will Bordill (Sale Sharks) and Andy Cramond (Aberdeen Grammar).
* = supported by sportscotland Institute of Sport

Fixtures:
05 Jun 20:00 (19:00 BST) Argentina - Scotland Stade Pascal Laporte, Nantes
09 Jun 17:00 (16:00 BST) Wales - Scotland Stade Pascal Laporte, Nantes
13 Jun 19:00 (18:00 BST) Scotland - Samoa Stade Pascal Laporte, Nantes

Semi-finals 18 Jun
Finals 23 Jun

IRB Profile:

Seeding for JWC 2013: 9
Best finish: Ninth (2009, 2012)
Worst finish: 10th (2008, 2010, 2011)

JWC match record: Played 25 / Won 10 / Lost 15
JWC points/tries scored: 503 / 63

JWC graduates: 14
Most capped JWC graduates: Richie Gray (31 Tests)

Did you know...? Scotland only finished ninth in 2012 but had were the top try scorers (21) and had the top try scorer in Jamie Farndale. They scored 14 of these in the play-offs for ninth to 12th.

Coach: Sean Lineen
Captain: Jonny Gray

One to watch: Jamie Farndale
The top try scorer at JWC 2012 with six tries – including braces against Italy and Samoa in the play-off stages – Farndale will be relieved to have made Scotland’s squad for the tournament after breaking his leg playing for Edinburgh Accies back in September. He’ll be keen to make up for his time on the sides and retain his mantle of top try scorer this time around. He has previously represented Scotland in pentathlon and can also play the bagpipes.

thebluesmancometh wrote:Wow never saw that coming, we knew the Argy forwards would be big and physical but I though Scotland stood a chance.

This is entirely your fault!

Not a good start, but then last year we started with a 67-12 defeat to Australia and improved throughout the tournament so here's hoping we do again! We beat Samoa convincingly last year so if we can do that again we could be in with a chance of making the 5th-8th place playoffs, which would be an improvement on last year. We will probably need at least one bonus point to manage that though.

For anyone who doesn't know, the three pool winners and the best runner up go into the 1st-4th place playoffs, the other two runners up and the best two third-placed teams go into the 5th-8th place playoffs and the last third-placed team and the three bottom teams go into the 9th-12th place playoffs. So if we get one win in the pool stage we will probably finish third, but we will need to get more points than at least one of the other third-placed finishers, hence the need for bonus points! A try bonus against Samoa is definitely achievavle, a losing bonus against Wales is probably a tougher prospect but not out of the question. Beating them seems unlikely at this stage but you never know!

Pat_Mustard wrote:Not a good start, but then last year we started with a 67-12 defeat to Australia and improved throughout the tournament so here's hoping we do again!

And that's what I'm worried about now that your next game is against Wales. Argentina recently beat SA twice in a test series so they must have a good team this year, and let us not forget they topped their pool in last years tournament.
You should get 4 tries and a win against Samoa, they're hopeless at this level.

thebluesmancometh wrote:

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:I'm afraid that result was always coming bluesman - Arg beat South Africa in a three-match warm-up series prior to the JWC, so they are a pretty useful side.

Happy with tries from Farndale and

But it's not the same SA as last time out, they lost a fair few players and they really targetted that last tourny... Although saying that my tipped team USA just took a 97 point tonking off them!

It is a whole new squad mate, only Handre Pollard left from last year.


all the others are rookies

But will most of them be available for JWC rugby next year?

I would hope so mate.

Rookies who just horsed the USA 97-0 or something??

Well there is some serious pace in that team, Senatla has played in 5 Sevens tournaments this year, not sure if you follow the Sevens, but this guy is FAST, our little fullback, Cheslin Kolbe is as elusive as Shane Williams with more pace, but to be fair the USA is going to get the same sort of pastings by England and perhaps to a lesser extent from France.

Just watched the , admittedly poor, highlights of the game. The Scottish tries were well worked, Bennett featuring heavily in the first and scoring the second. No answer to the power of the Pumas, though. They absolutely dwarfed their Scottish counterparts in the forwards, and generally looked stronger throughout. An all too familiar tale at this level.

Link?

its on rugbydump

Ta

Has someone checked the Argies passports and verified their dates of birth. Some big dudes there. As a race, though, we are small (apart from those guys who live on McDonalds etc all day and then at the first sign of sun, insist on walking about Princes St Gardens with their top off)

The Argies are renowned for their forward play much like the English. With a population of over 60 Mil I guess the biggest guys would get represented. We did them up front last season, I'm hoping we can do the same this year but without switching off in the last quarter. The junior Puma's have only recently been very competitive at this level, go back a few years and I think they had 70+ points put on them by a certain team in Black.

They must be getting their coaching and their academies sorted, Saint. It is one thing to be big but another thing altogether to be big and a good player. I am old enough to remember the7 foot 1 inch Richard Metcalfe !!!

England know all about that. Their very large but very mobile pack didn't let France get a foot in the game yesterday. Result 6-30. Hmmm, that seems like a familiar score line ...

Just saw the highlights of this game, gotta say although I was expecting the Argy forwards to be trucking over, and possibly the set peice being an issue (which I'm sure it was) I bet Scottish fans are very dissapointed in the tries scored from Argentina, 3 tries coming from poor back play, messy passing and the ball carrier beating the defence single handedly!

You can blame size as much as you like the defencive system had no belief, and wasn't structured very well, from a coaching POV the boys themselves can't really take too much blame.

Yes very disappointing defence, that will have to improve if we're going to come close to Wales.

Loughborough University student Blair Hutchison has been drafted in as an injury replacement for Scotland under-20.

The former Melrose player will take the place of Edinburgh Accies full-back, Ruaridh Young, who broke his leg in Wednesday's Junior World Championship loss to Argentina (44-13).

Hutchison will begin training with the team immediately, and will be available for selection for the nation’s next Pool C match against Wales this Sunday at the Stade Pascal Laporte in Nantes (kick-off 4pm BST).

Shame for Young.

Much improved performance against Wales before eventually going down 26-21 - highlights available at http://www.irb.com/jwc/video/index.html

The LBP could be important, the other currently third-placed teams are France, currently on 5 points and still to play South Africa, and Australia, currently on 2 points and still to play Fiji. Australia have a good chance of a bonus point win there which would take them out of reach but France could definitely lose by more than 7, which would mean a bonus point win for the Scots against Samoa would take us onto 6 points and into the 5th-8th place playoffs, an improvement on previous years. We put 60 points past Samoa in last year's competition, although they lost more narrowly to Argentina on Sunday so it may not be quite that easy but we have to be going for the win first and foremost, and hopefully the bonus point.

Wales tonked us by 30 odd points in the spring so that has to go down as a definite improvement because Wales has an uncommonly strong young crop coming up. I am not taking anything for granted in respect of Samoan rugby any more!

Any stand out players in the much improved performance?

?

Anyone else getting a video error with the highlights?

funnyExiledScot wrote:Any stand out players in the much improved performance?

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I've only seen the highlights so difficult to say. Our two tries were forwards crashing over from short range. Allan nailed a long kick from inside his own half. Can't add anything else, my claim of an improved performance was only based on the scoreline.

So we got the BP win, although we required a late penalty to clinch it 36-33. Unfortunately the French scraped an LBP by the skin of their teeth, and go through ahead of us on points difference. Disappointing but can't really complain, we paid the price for conceding 11 tries in 3 games.

That means we are in the 9th-12th place playoffs, which we will have to win to match last year's 9th place finish. Our semi is against USA which should be a fairly easy win looking at their 109-0 defeat to England. Then we will either meet Samoa again, or Fiji, in the 9th place final.