Scotland have not managed to avoid falling into the play-offs for ninth-12th place since the IRB Junior World Championship became a 12-team tournament back in 2010, and with it has hovered the threat of relegation.
Although Sean Lineen's charges will again contest the bottom four positions, the prospect of them being relegated is all but removed. Their opponents tonight are USA, who earned their place in the competiton by winning last year's second-tier championship, but who proved to be completely out of their depth in their pool matches.
USA conceded 251 points in their pool matches, in defeats by South Africa (97-0), France (45-3) and England (109-0), all of which distorted the rankings for the last two rounds of the championship. The margin of their victories over the Americans earned England a place in the top-four (Ireland and Argentina also finished on 10 points but had inferior points differences) and France in the middle grouping (Scotland also had six points but an inferior points difference).
Scotland go into tonight's tie at the Stade Pascal Laporte having come through punishingly hard matches against Argentina, Wales and Samoa, but the standard of the USA team gives Lineen the chance to rest key players ahead of what will be a hard final match against either Fiji or Samoa on Sunday.
"There are a number of players carrying injuries, such as D'Arcy Rae, Russell Anderson, Tommy Allan, Robbie Fergusson, Damien Hoyland and JJ Kilmartin, so we need to let some players recover," said Lineen. "We will treat USA with respect despite their results in the pool. They have a couple of players who are in English Premiership academies, and they are here by right, having qualified from the second tier last year."
TEAMS. Scotland U20 JJ Kilmartin; J Farndale, C Auld, M Bennett (capt), R Hughes; B Cooper, S Steele; J Bhatti, C Black, P Cringle, R Leishman, A Sinclair, E Masterson, W Bordill, T Spinks.
Subs: R Kennedy, R Wilson, J Malcolm, A Henderson, A Ashe, A Price, B Hutchison, D Hoyland
USA U20 D Audsley; G Brown, E Okusi, J Stewart, L Fillikitonga; C Kearns, T Bliss (capt); C Banks, C Falcon, H Hall, T Veamatahau, C Ostberg, Z Bonte, V Toluta'u, A Goff.
Subs: C Huizenga, V Tomasi, S Anitema, B Hardiman, R Deacon, A Taefu, C Murphy, N Tarrant
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