{"id":224674,"date":"2025-06-29T18:47:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T18:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/224674\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T18:47:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T18:47:12","slug":"no-excuses-says-scotland-coach-kenny-murray-after-heavy-defeat-to-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/224674\/","title":{"rendered":"No excuses says Scotland coach Kenny Murray after heavy defeat to England"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KennyKenny Murray congratulated his team for the resolve they showed in the second half against England but was disappointed with areas of the overall performance in World Rugby U20 Championship opener. Image: World Rugby <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n

IT was a tough afternoon against the reigning champions in the sweltering heat of north Italy, but Scotland head coach Kenny Murray was in no mood for making excuses for his Scotland Under-20s side after they suffered a 56-19 defeat to England in the opening round of the World Rugby U20 Championship earlier this [Sunday] afternoon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe first 20 minutes we actually did well, scored a couple of good tries [but] you can see there\u2019s just some soft tries, which was really frustrating,\u201d said Murray. \u201cThe yellow card hurt us a little bit as well, and I thought we just defensively didn\u2019t work hard enough. We didn\u2019t get round the corner, allowed them to get us on the edges too easily, which really put us under pressure. So, [we\u2019ve] got a bit of work to do with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought in the second half, the boys worked really hard, [I\u2019m] really proud that England had to work hard to get tries for the first 30 minutes of that period. A couple of kicks we should have dealt with a bit better, but I thought the boys showed a lot of resolve in the second half to keep them out.<\/p>\n

World Rugby U20 Championship: Scotland outgunned by England in campaign opener<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve understood we need to work hard in these conditions. I thought at we probably just let our feet o\ufb00 the gas a few times. In the first 20 minutes they got on with [playing in the heat], but I think they hit a bit of a wall after 20 minutes. You could see that visibly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just tough, but it\u2019s tough for all the teams. It\u2019s not just us, all the teams have got the same issues, so we just need to get on with it and perform as well as we can.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the most important thing now is recovery,\u201d he added. \u201cPlaying at half-past three [local time] is tough, and we have all our games at that time so that\u2019s really tough for us. It\u2019s about recovering well, we\u2019ve got a plan, a strategy in place for that, and make sure we\u2019re looking after the boys.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we\u2019ll look at our game over the next day or two, and get ready for Australia [in round two on Friday]. We focus a lot on ourselves, but we\u2019ll look at Australia and see where their threats are before we go and play them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key thing for us is just around small errors having big impacts on games at this level of rugby.We saw that today. A couple of defensive errors let them in for soft tries. A couple of not defusing a few kicks gave them two tries at the end as well.<\/p>\n

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Australia suffered an even heavier defeat in their opening match, going down 73-17 to South Africa, but Murray warned that the young Wallabies will seize the opportunity to turn their campaign around if Scotland don\u2019t address the individual errors which he believes cost his team against England.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were definitely times in the pitch where we probably lost our connections,\u201d he reflected. \u201cA couple of times we flew out of line and allowed them to get soft line breaks. A couple of times I felt our collision wasn\u2019t good enough and we didn\u2019t slow them down. They\u2019re getting really quick ball. When you\u2019re not getting round the corner and they\u2019re getting quick ball, it\u2019s the worst possible outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the nature of the tournament, you\u2019re playing five games in 20 days, so you need to use your squad and that\u2019s something we\u2019ll be doing. We\u2019ll see where we are injury-wise tonight and tomorrow, and then we\u2019ll see what we\u2019re looking at with the squad. Obviously, we\u2019ve had a think about the squad already for Australia, so we know where that\u2019s going to be, but we\u2019ll take into account some injuries that were picked up today.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We\u2019ve] just a couple of bumps. Hopefully nothing too serious. Ollie Duncan<\/strong> got a bang on his shoulder, so we\u2019ll see how that is, and then just some cramps ,and Ollie Blyth-La\ufb00erty<\/strong> got some stitches when he got an elbow in the eye. But hopefully nothing major.\u201d<\/p>\n

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World Rugby U20 Championship: Scotland outgunned by England in campaign opener<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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