Scotland fell to a disappointing 34-7 defeat to Wales in the Student Four Nations Championships in Bray, Ireland this afternoon.
They trailed just 6-8 at half-time but fell apart in the second half, leaving coach Nathan Graham dismayed at the final score.
"We were outstanding in the first half but we lost a lot of energy after the break and stopped playing. Some players went into their shells and we did a lot of dumb things defensively. I'm gutted for the lads because the score doesn't reflect the whole game."
Scotland's try came from Charlie Leask of Gateshead College, who had moved to centre for this game, finishing off a fine short-side move to wrestle over in the right hand corner. Co-captain Finny Murphy of St Andrews University kicked the conversion. University of Gloucestershire's Ryan Lee added a second-half drop goal but it was nowhere near enough as the Bravehearts faded.
Coming only two days after a 56-6 defeat by holders and favourites England, it was little surprise Scotland struggled as the game went on.
"If we could put the second half from the England game together with the first half from today we would be alright," admitted Graham, the former Bradford and Scotland full-back. "Credit must go to our back rowers Gavin Grant and Dan Turland and Ollie Murray at loose forward, who have all played every minute of both games and been fantastic. Ollie was Man of the Match today - he was absolutely brilliant, and Niall Sydney was excellent at full-back too. They are both teenagers with a lot of potential."
Wales beat Ireland 20-12 in their opening game so go top of the group. Scotland now have two days to recover before playing hosts Ireland at Castle Grounds in Bray on Friday at 4pm.
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 hereComments are closed on this article