Four Borderers in Scotland’s starting XV for round three of rugby’s 2026 Under-20 Six Nations

Peebles’ McHaffie, 18, continues on the left wing, Gala’s Moncrieff, 19, on the right and Melrose’s Dalziel, 17, at fly-half away to Wales in Cardiff this Friday.

All three retain their respective No 11, No 14 and No 10 shirts after starting for the young Scots’ 36-10 win away to Italy in Treviso on Friday, February 6, and their 33-17 defeat at home to England at Edinburgh’s Hive Stadium last Friday.

All three played for the full 80 minutes against the Italians and all three scored tries, Dalziel at the double, and they were accompanied at that game by Kelso’s Jack Utterson at openside flanker for the first 63 minutes before he made way for Harvey Preston.

McHaffie, his Edinburgh academy teammate Moncrieff and Dalziel, a pupil at the capital’s Merchiston Castle School, also put in full shifts versus the English, with the No 11 contributing another try.

Utterson, 18, started that one too, at No 7, again going off for Preston, as did his fellow Edinburgh academy teammate and squad captain Ross Wolfenden, at inside-centre, after being ruled out of playing the week before by a concussion in training.

Peebles product Wolfenden, 19, on for 50 minutes against the English before trading places with Calum Jessop, carries on at No 12 this week but Utterson misses out due to a hamstring injury, with Glasgow Hawks’ Preston, 18, taking his place.

McHaffie, Moncrieff and Dalziel’s fellow backs are Henry Widdowson, Campbell Waugh and Hamish MacArthur.

Up front with Preston are Jamie Stewart, Joe Roberts, Ollie Blyth-Lafferty, Christian Lindsay, Alfie Blackett, Sam Byrd and Rory Purvis.

Friday’s replacements are Jamie McAughtrie, Oliver McKenna, Jackson Rennie, Archie Appleby, Fin Ronnie, Jack Marshall, Adam McKenzie and Jessop.

Kick-off is at 7.15pm and the game can be seen live on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website.

Scotland go into round three of the championship sitting third in the table on five points, three places and four points better off than the Welsh.

Looking ahead to playing in Cardiff, former Hawick lock Pringle, 47, told the Offside Line rugby news website: “Wales are a good team. They’ve lost by a few points to England away and then they’ve just lost to France, having led for a lot of the game.

“If you look at the Wales group, they’ve got a number of players playing in the United Rugby Championship. They’ve got their captain, Deian Gwynne, who started for Gloucester against Edinburgh in the challenge cup, so we know they’re a tough team with good players.

“They’ll be desperate to put in a performance and they’ll have marked our card going down there as a must-win game for them, so we’re aware of that.

“I don’t see this game as the pressure being off us in the sense that Wales are known to have a good group, a strong team, and the pressure will be on them to get a win and they’ll be desperate, but the pressure is also on us to go out there and put in a performance.

“It’s probably quite important that we feel that sense of expectation to go down there and get a result and put in a good performance because that’s part of the development.

“Part of the programme is feeling that pressure and going into these situations that are tough, and knowing that you have to work really hard to get results, and it comes down to fine margins, whereas in most of the games that these boys play, the consequences of mistakes aren’t as big as they are when they’re playing in an under-20s international.”

The South African is unsure how long Utterson will be out for, adding: “He picked up a slight niggle in training and we just can’t take any chances. You have to be really careful with the hamstring.

“It’s obviously a pity because he’s been going really well, but it’s one of these things when it’s into the third week and you’ve just got to be so careful with how you do things, how you manage the boys.

“He’s had a scan but we haven’t got the results yet, so when we get those back, we’ll have a real clear picture of how that looks.

“It gives us a chance to look at Harvey Preston, which was something we were considering anyway.”