Borderers help Scotland to victory v Ireland in World Rugby U20 Championship warm-up

Hawick’s Patterson and Gala’s Moncrieff, currently teammates in Edinburgh’s academy, were both named in head coach Kenny Murray’s starting XV for that warm-up for World Rugby U20 Championship in Italy later this month and next, at scrum-half and on the right wing respectively, and Melrose’s Cockburn joined them from the bench later on.

“We’re only playing one game in the build up to the championship, so it was good to see the transfer from the training pitch,” said Murray, 51, afterwards.

“There was some good stuff and a lot to work on as well.

“In the last few years, we’ve not beaten Ireland, and we’ve worked hard to get to where we are.

“We spoke a lot this week around getting on the front foot early and I thought we did that, and we always planned to use our full squad today and we managed to get all 28 players on the pitch, which was great.”

Scotland’s try-scorers were Jack Brown with three, Johnny Ventisei, Reuben Logan at the double, Cameron van Wyk and Noah Cowan, with Isaac Coates adding three conversions and Matthew Urwin another.

Touching down for their hosts were Gene O’Leary Kareem and Henry Walker twice and Luke Murphy, with Sam Wisniewski kicking two conversions.

That was the Scottish age-grade side’s second game against the Irish so far this year, the other being a 33-15 Under-20 Six Nations loss at Edinburgh’s Hive Stadium in February.

The young Scots’ next game is against England at the championship on Sunday, June 29, with kick-off in Verona at 2.30pm, followed by further pool matches against Australia in Viadana and South Africa in Calvisano on Friday, July 4, and Wednesday, July 9, respectively, both kicking off at 2.30pm too.

Murray is scheduled to name the squad he’ll be taking to the championship this Thursday.