England under-20s dominated Scotland in the Six Nations earlier this year. Image: Scottish Rugby. 
HAVING convincingly beaten the Scots 57-13 the last time the two sides met in February, England head coach Mark Maplecroft was full of praise for Scotland in the build-up to their under-20s World Cup clash on Sunday.
“I think you saw towards the end of the Six Nations that they were improving, although Wales were down to 13 or 14 players at one stage. But I thought their performance in France was good and their performance against Ireland in the warm-up games was good as well.
“We’d have done an analysis on them and through the first two games of the Six Nations prior to playing them.
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“First 20 minutes actually were quite tight and then we managed to put our foot down and pull away in that second half. But it was tight for a while. So they’re no mugs and yes they conceded a few, but they scored a few and I think they’ve got a good platform to play from.”
Similarly, captain Tom Burrow and soon to be teammate of Reuben Logan at the Sale Sharks is acutely aware of the dangers the underdogs possess.
“I think they’ll pose a different test to the one we faced in the Six Nations. We’re expecting a properly physical and mental 80-minute battle. Look, their maul and drive game is very strong from a forward’s perspective,” said Burrow.
“They’ll be physical and they’ll try and impose themselves and we have to stand up in front of that. We’re expecting big ball carriers who are going to come and make dents in us.”
Speaking to The Offside Line, Tom’s opposing captain Johnny Ventisei, was relishing the prospect of facing rivals England after missing their last encounter and the ensuing rounds of the Six Nations with injury.
“It’s very exciting. We’re playing the former champions in the first game who are also our biggest rivals. I think we’ll hopefully be able to give a better account of ourselves in the last game and show the progress we’ve made in that period of time. It’s definitely very exciting to start the campaign off against them.”
After a period he described as the most “toughest part of his career”, Ventisei spoke of his delight at being able to return to the age-grade fold, captaining solo at the weekend as Freddy Douglas misses out with concussion.
“To be back with all the boys here in Italy, I’m over the moon, so I can’t wait for it. As a group we’re really close and I think that will help us on the pitch. We’ve obviously got to focus on the fact that this is not a holiday. We’re here to play these matches and hopefully win these matches.”
The comfortable surroundings have been made all the less stressful for head coach Kenny Murray by the news that there will be no relegation in this year’s edition, with the competition potentially set to include 16 teams.
“It probably takes a bit of pressure off in terms of having nothing to worry about relegation and getting to game 4 and 5, so, not a lot changes, though we still want to perform well and win our games.”
However that will not detract from the immense difficulties they face in a group featuring England, Australia and South Africa. “We obviously won’t be taking any of those games lightly. England will be flying, they’ll be looking to try and win the competition again, no doubt. The England game was probably our worst performance of the Six Nations.
“I don’t think we gave a good account of ourselves in that game and nothing really went for us, so we want to go out there on Sunday and have a much better performance and have a real crack at them.”
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