Scotland Students 28 -14 Workington Under-21s.
Saturday 16th June 2001
The warm up match for Scotland's forthcoming tour of France took place at
Derwent Park, Workington and was expected to be closely fought, as
Workington are a professional side.
However, Scotland set off with a solid
start when the prop forward Andy Cane scored in the 6th minute after a
forced handling error by Workington. Barry Edgar made the score 6-0 by
converting the try and a few minutes later Cane, who was making his Scotland
debut, scored a try by a good off load out wide from John MacDonald after a
powerful drive from Ashley Carrol. Cane completed his hat trick by
receiving another skillful off load, this time from Carrol who had drawn a
number of defenders in. This was also neatly converted by Edgar to give
Scotland a comfortable score of 18-0 after only 20 minutes of play.
A lapse in concentration by the Students allowed a Workington try when the
kick after Workington's fifth tackle was dropped by a Scotland player over
their own try line and grounded by Workington. The home side's conversion
kicking was not as accurate as Scotland's and the conversion was missed.
Late in the first half Edgar broke through a number of tackles to score his
own try but unfortunately missed his conversion. In the 39th minute,
Workington scored an easy try after poor Scotland defending and closed the
score line to 22-10 after converting the try.
The second half displayed a tighter battle between the two sides with
Workington scoring within the first couple of minutes, but again unable to
make the conversion. Scotland had a number of opportunities to score
further but handling errors prevented this. After a constant stream of
pressure by Workington deep into Scotland's half, the Scotland Students'
centre, MacDonald, made a break after Scotland won their own scrummage,
which had been a result of more Workington handling errors. MacDonald made
a good run up to Workington's 40 metre line and after a sequence of precise
passes and moves Carrol drove over the try line. Edgar made another neat
conversion to make the final score 28-14, a convincing win for Scotland. It
was evident both sides were tiring in the second half but Scotland worked
hard to minimise the number of tries scored against them with solid and
efficient tackling.
The management team of John Risman and Kevin Rudd were happy with the
significant score line. Both managers found this extremely encouraging for
the forthcoming tour of France, as the match displayed high levels of skill
by the current Scotland Students side.
Sat 30th June - Sun 8th July
Training Camp/Development Tour to France
Sun 29th July
Scotland Students v A.N.O
Sun 19th Aug. : Carlisle
Scotland Students V Great Britain Police
Sept 5th - Sept 16th : Kazan, Russia
European Championship
