Australia proved too strong for Scotland Under-19 in yesterday's match at Myreside but the Scots, who fielded a majority of under-18 players, were far from outplayed as demonstrated by the narrow try advantage of 2-1.
The visitors amassed 14 of their 23 first-half points through the boot of stand-off Andrew Deegan as a result of their domination of the contact area by their athletic forwards and powerful running from their big centres, who proved difficult to stop.
The scratch Scotland side, who had only one training session for this match and who were weakened by several late call-offs, were always going to find it tough against a team battle hardened by four matches including games against England U18 and Wales U18.
"They were a better side than us but the important thing is that some of our young players were exposed to a level of rugby that is higher than they've ever experienced," said coach Eddie Pollock. "I thought we scrummaged really well but we could not use that advantage because of the under-19 scrum laws. But it augers well for the future".
Outstanding for Scotland was the back row of Ally Miller, Magnus Bradbury and James Ritchie while behind the scrum, Ben Vellacot helped to trigger a stirring second-half performance.
Australia led 23-0 at the break with tries from centre Tepai Moeroa and full-back Andrew Kellaway, both converted by Deegan, who also also kicked three first half penalties
The Scots looked much more abrasive in the second half but two further penalties put the tourists further ahead. went further behind with a penalty and one by replacement Mitch Third. But Scotland staged a fightback, No.8 Bradbury picking up from the base of a scrum before sprinting through a defensive gap to score from 30 metres out for the final points of the game.
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