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Rampant Scotland hit another century in World Rugby U20 Trophy

By Jon Newcombe
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - JULY 07: Scotland's Finlay Doyle scores a try during a World Rugby U20 Trophy 2024 match between Scotland and Hong Kong China at the Hive Stadium, on July 07, 2024, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo by Ewan Bootman / SNS Group)

Scotland racked up another century of points at Hive Stadium in Edinburgh as they cruised to a second bonus-point win of the World Rugby U20 Trophy against an outgunned Hong Kong China.

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Mechanical engineering student Finlay Doyle scored his second hat-trick of the competition after crossing three times in the 123-15 romp against Samoa last Tuesday and at this rate is on course to become the first player in U20 Trophy history to get into double figures for a single tournament.

The current tournament record is jointly held by Samoa’s Robert Lilomaiava and Portugal’s Raffaele Storti, who has made the step up to Test level with ease as anyone lucky enough to witness his performances at last year’s Rugby World Cup will testify.

Scotland reached three figures with time nearly up thanks to Matthew Urwin’s 13th conversion of the match, the fly half only missing with two of his attempts in a remarkable display of goal kicking.

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With Japan also on maximum points after picking up their second bonus point win  of the tournament, top spot in Pool A – and a place in the U20 Trophy final – will be decided when they play Scotland in the final round of pool games on Friday.

Three-time U20 Trophy champions Japan put on a clinical show of finishing in beating Hong Kong China 105-20 in round one but it wasn’t until the second half that the floodgates opened against a much-improved Samoa.

Japan scored five tries before the break but poor goalkicking meant they only turned around 27-7 in front.

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Koharu Ebisawa scored a hat-trick in the match to take his tally for the tournament to four, whilst fellow wing Kent Iioka added one more try to his four-timer against Hong Kong China.

USA are well on course to booking a place in the final as Pool B winners after making it two wins from two against last year’s runners-up Uruguay.

The Junior All-Americans were matched by Los Teritos on the try count, with both sides crossing twice, but Benjamin Saunders and Oliver Kline kicked three penalties apiece to secure them victory.

USA will go into their final pool match with Kenya holding a three-point lead over the Netherlands at the top of the standings.

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The Netherlands have an outside chance of topping the pool in their debut tournament after beating Kenya 51-3 in the final match of the day.

Joris Smits scored two tries to add to his hat-trick in round one as the Dutch raced into a 41-3 half-time lead but they were only able to add two unconverted tries after the break.

The Netherlands are up against Uruguay in their final pool game and need to win that and hope Kenya do them a favour against USA to be in contention for the final and a shot at promotion to the U20 Championship in 2025.

 

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J
JW 2 hours ago
Nigel Owens' verdict on the 20-minute red card trial

Alright, to his credit he did have something to say after that..

“As far as the 20-minute red card idea is concerned, I’m not a fan. As Mathieu has said, I don’t believe it will really solve any of the problems that we have in the game at the moment.

So we might as well start here, which I'm assume was the topic he started with as well. The only reason 20min rec cards were brought in was to make the game fairer, a problem highlighted by their recent frequency.


A player, and team, should receive the same punishment for a particular foul, no matter what. Red cards (as they were) don't achieve that as the punishment is purely dependent and what stage of the game it is (if you think a punishment has an effect on the frequency of offenses, ask yourself if you've noticed more people committing red card offences towards the ends of game). So a team who receives a red card in the first minute of the game, is overly punished and that is obviously going to be the case for the viewers as well. That is the problem a fixed length red card 'solves'.


Now, onto the other topics he raises..

“They should not be seen as red card offences in the first place – so do we need to change the laws instead?

They're not!!!! They are now seen as 20min red card offences. Here at least, you could still be given a straight red no replacement card on the field for 'thuggery'. This is the law change you're asking for!

Too often, players are still not making the effort to go lower.

Going lower is the cause of these problems. There is nothing wrong with upright tackles, they are safe. Shoulder charging and swinging arms are long out of the game Nigel!

if you have been sent off, you have done something reckless that has put another player at great risk

No, not necessarily. But in the few cases where they were, that punishment is for the player. Not the team. You can be sent off for receiving a 'team' yellow, this is a case were the rule should directly be rectified however. It's outside this discussion.

A red card means you deserve to be off the pitch, so I don’t see why there should be a middle ground.

There is still a lot of careless, reckless conduct out there, so I don’t know if introducing these new cards has made much of a difference anyway.”

I don't recall any careless or reckless behaviour, not at least in TRC, what is he referring to? What we did just see was the game last week be saved by the 20min RC rule. We had what Nigel is describing as an accidental head collision which saw Argentina receive a read card (must have been very close to yellow). Normally that would have destroyed the game (and it did for that period), but by returning to 15 players it was still able to be a contest, which Opta suggests would normally have had just a 7 point gap between the teams. This is why there is a middle ground (what you have been saying you want!!).

do we need to change the laws instead?

Back to his poorly made point. I would suggest bigger off field penalties that are far more involved that a 'tackling' school, and obviously not just for the player, the whole team, especially the coachs, needed to be doing the penance. A definite review to team based yellow cards and how infringement sequences can be better handled is required as well.

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