Updated: Borderers Hector Patterson, Dylan Cockburn and Ben White help Scotland salvage bonus point from second defeat of World Rugby U20 Championship

That 34-24 loss to Australia in Viadana in Italy followed a 56-19 thumping by England in Verona the Sunday prior, leaving head coach Kenny Murray’s team at the bottom of their pool of four with only one point to their name ahead of their concluding group-stage match against undefeated table-toppers South Africa in Calvisano on Wednesday, with kick-off at 2.30pm.

Hawick’s Patterson played for the first 63 minutes of Friday’s game at scrum-half before making way for Noah Cowan and Melrose’s Cockburn for the opening 54 at lock, with Seb Stephen replacing him. Melrose’s White, previously with Peebles, was brought on as a 47th-minute replacement for Oliver McKenna at loosehead prop.

Patterson, 20, and Cockburn, 19, are currently teammates in United Rugby Championship side Edinburgh’s academy and White, 20, is in the academy at their rivals Glasgow Warriors.

Friday’s game was the second of the tournament for Patterson and Cockburn – both having appeared as substitutes against the English, on 62 minutes for Cowan and 53 for Dan Halkon respectively – and White’s first.

Scotland’s tries against the Australians, putting them 24-17 in front at one point, were scored by blindside flanker Oliver Duncan at the double, openside Flanker Freddy Douglas and full-back Jed Findlay, with fly-half Matthew Urwin and his replacement Isaac Coates adding a conversion apiece.

Touching down the other way were James Martens twice, Nicholas Conway, Lipina Ata, Finn Baxter and Will Guilfoyle, with Sid Harvey kicking two conversions.

Murray, 51, reckons his side were unlucky to end up losing out, saying: “Ultimately, I felt we’d done enough to create chances but we just weren’t clinical enough.

“I’m quite frustrated, to be honest. It’s definitely a game I felt we should have won. We got ourselves into a good position in the second half and got a lead in the game, but we just made too many errors.

“We didn’t capitalise on our possession enough. We turned over too cheaply off first phase a few times, and they punished us, particularly from scrums, and then, when we got ourselves into some really good attacking positions five metres out, we didn’t capitalise. We lost a couple of lineouts, and then I think we got turned over in a few one-on-ones.

“At this level, you’ve got to be clinical and get into that area and make sure we come away with points. We didn’t do that enough, so that was probably the frustrating thing for me.

“We knew after their score last week against South Africa that Australia were there for a beating. They’re a good side, they’ve got some good players, but going into the game, we were really confident we’d put a performance in, and, yes, it’s good getting a performance, but, in all honesty, it’s a game we should have won. We got ourselves into a good position and, for me, we should have won it.

“I’m not faulting the guys’ effort at all. We’ve just got to be better than we were today. I felt we were good enough in parts of that game to win today, but we just weren’t clinical enough.

“When you come to the junior world championship, you’ve got to play against the best teams in the world. That’s ultimately what we want to test ourselves against. It’s tough and it’s a challenge, but that’s where we want to be. We don’t want to be anywhere else – we want to be here.

“We need to really focus on how we learn from it, how we improve, how we get better and how we develop, both individually as players and as a group.”

Murray named his squad to play the Springboks on Monday, giving Patterson the No 9 jersey again.

He’s one of two Borderers in Murray’s starting XV, with Gala’s Nairn Moncrieff returning on the right wing.