Scotland made sure of their place in next year's IRB Junior World Championship which will be staged in Auckland, New Zealand, after achieving an expected comfortable victory over USA last night at Stade Pascal Laporte in Nantes.
The Scots will now face Samoa for a second time in the tournament in Sunday's final round to decide 9th and 10th places, the Samoans having defeated their pacific rivals, Fiji, 19-18 last night in a typically close inter-island match.
Given USA's record in their pool matches when they shipped 251 points over the three rounds, there was never any danger that Scotland would slip up against the Americans, and the Scots duly won with relative ease, in no small part due to their Glasgow Warriors captain, Mark Bennett, who contributed 22 points from two tries, three conversions and two penalties before being replaced in the second half by debutant Loughborough student Blair Hutchison from Melrose.
Scotland's other tries came from a first-half effort by former Dumfries and now Leicester Tigers' scrum-half Scott Steele and second- half touchdowns from full-back JJ Kilmartin and centre Chris Auld with a conversion from stand-off Ben Cooper.
At the top end of the championship Wales achieved a place in the final for the first time after defeating the defending champions, South Africa, with a 18-17 victory thanks to a last minute try by winger Ashley Evans and a pressure touchline conversion by stand-off Sam Davies.
Wales will face England in the all northern hemisphere final on Sunday after holding off a late fight back by New Zealand to achieve a 33-21 victory over the Junior All Blacks.
Elsewhere Ireland were narrowly beaten 9-8 by France and Australia lost 22-15 to Argentina
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