Scotland U20 through to fifth place play-off in Junior World Championship after beating Japan

Fergus Pringle’s side only needed one point from the fixture to guarantee they would finish second in their group with New Zealand having beaten Italy 45-13 earlier in the day. They secure that when captain Joe Roberts crossed for their fourth try after just 32 minutes in Kutaisi.

Matthew Fick, Daniel Kelly and Ollie Blyth-Lafferty had already bagged tries while Jamie Steward and Alex Bryden crossed over after the break. The young Brave Blossoms were pushing for the win throughout but their hopes were ended in the 78th minute as stand-off Jake Dalziel intercepted during a dangerous attack to charge through for the final and decisive try.

Scotland see off tough Japan challenge to secure second pool stage win

Scotland will have the chance to equal their best ever result in this competition which came in 2017 where they finished fifth. They will now face one of the other pool stage runners-up in the semi-finals of the fifth place play-off. Win that and they face the winner of the other semi between the other two pool stage runners-up in one final match.

Speaking after the result, Scotland under 20 head coach Fergus Pringle said: “It wasn't the most accurate performance by us. We started well but we let them into the game just through our errors and our ill discipline.

“That being said, in the past we'd probably lose a game like that. It was 50-50 and there's some big momentum swings. So, I suppose that's what we've got to go focus on going forward.

“We need to improve our discipline and we need to improve our accuracy. There's a lot of character there, you just build a bit of confidence when you can get a win like that when you know you're not at your best.

“We took a few knocks. We'll reassess, see where we are and then just try and get the boys to recover really well, rest up and go have a real crack at whoever we play next.”

Your next rugby read: Ex Scotland fly-half Dan Parks remembers 2010 win over South Africa