Glasgow Warriors and Scotland prop Zander Fagerson has been named in the 28-strong Scotland under-20 squad for the Junior World Championship in Manchester next month and will be one of six fully professional players boosting the Scots effort. Fagerson, who was capped against England in the Six Nations, might have gone to Japan with the senior squad, but the thinking is that the Glasgow front row will gain far greater benefit from playing against his peers.
“Zander will face very strong opposition in the under-20 championship.” said the Scotland senior coach Vern Cotter, adding : “He will play against players who are likely to feature at senior level over the next ten to fifteen years. So it’s good that he gets to know them now.”
Fagerson is joined by fellow professionals Scott Cummings from Glasgow, Jamie Ritchie and Blair Kinghorn from Edinburgh, Adam Hastings from Bath and Robbie Nairn from Harlequins, all of whom played in at least one game for Scotland during the Six Nations under-20 Championship. New to the squad are the Currie players Cameron Gray and Matt McPhillips. “Both trained with us during the Six Nations and they’ve both played well for Currie.” commented the Scotland under-20 head coach, John Dalziel.
The Scotland squad is further strengthened by the timely return from injury of the Stirling flanker Lewis Wynn, one of the successes of the Scots campaign last June in Brescia where Scotland finished in a highest ever position of eighth. The Scots will do much of their preparatory training in France culminating with a game against France under-20 at Perpignan.
Scotland under-20 Squad for the Junior World Championship in Manchester 7-25 June:
Props: Dan Elkington (Melrose), Zander Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors), Murray McCallum (Heriot’s), Callum Sheldon (Leeds Beckett University), George Thornton (Bishop Burton College) Hookers Lewis Anderson (Ayr), Jake Kerr (Boroughmuir) Locks Stephen Ainslie (Currie), Scott Cummings (Glasgow Warriors) captain, Andrew Davidson (Glasgow Hawks), Callum Hunter-Hill (Stirling County) Back Rows: Scott Burnside (Boroughmuir), Ally Miller (Melrose), Jamie Ritchie (Edinburgh Rugby), Matt Smith (Glasgow Hawks), Lewis Wynn (Stirling County) Half Backs: Hugh Fraser (Heriot’s), Adam Hastings (Bath Rugby), Charlie Shiel (Currie) Centres: Tom Galbraith (Melrose), Rory Hutchinson (Bath Rugby), Charlie Shiel (Currie), Geoge Taylor (Melrose) Back Three: Darcy Graham (Hawick), Cameron (Gray), Blair Kinghorn (Edinburgh Rugby), Robbie Nairn (Harlequins), Ben Robbins (Currie)
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here