Scotland lost two tight 35-minute matches last time out at the U18 Six Nations Festival at Wellington College in England, but they are growing in confidence and playing some good rugby.
That is the view of head coach Lindsey Smith after the team – following an opening 26-26 draw in a full game versus Italy last Thursday – went down 22-14 to England and 12-7 to Ireland in real tussles.
“I’m very proud of the girls, they did exactly what we asked them to do,” Smith said after Monday’s two clashes in which the wider squad was used.
“We were really physical around the breakdown which is something we wanted to work on from game one against Italy.
“It was important that everyone got game time, we’re trying to expose people to this level of competition and develop them. What is pleasing for me is that we’ve competed in all three games and we were in a position to win all three of them.
“To execute multi-phase defence like we had to on Monday, that’s class. A lot of these players won’t get exposed to that in the club game so to be able to execute it the way they did, I think that shows a lot of promise for the future.
“Our ability to move the ball is a real strength of ours. I think we need to be a bit more clinical in the opposition ‘22’ which we’ll work on, but you can see the players grow in confidence every time we play.”
Tries from Bethan Mathieson and Robyn Allan came against England and Emma Wylie converted them both while, against Ireland, aa try from match skipper Ellen Nimmo converted by Niamh Waters had the Scots 7-0 up for part of the game, but in the end Ireland came out on top.
The last outing for Scotland at this event is on Friday when they will play a full match versus Wales at noon.
Action from the U18 Six Nations Festival game versus Ireland is pictured – thanks to Scottish Rugby/Six Nations
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