Scotland Under-20 squad draws on players from South Africa, New Zealand and England

The net has been cast wide as Murrayfield continues to scour the globe for Scottish-qualified talent at all levels.

Scrum-half Matthew Fick and centre Harry Soboil, both from South Africa, are in the squad. The pair are part of Edinburgh Rugby’s academy intake for 2026-27 and moved to the capital from St Charles College in KwaZulu-Natal and Rondebosch Boys’ High School in Cape Town, respectively.

Also included in the party which will travel to Georgia on Sunday is forward Finlay Mather, son of the former Scotland international back-rower, Cameron, who played at the 1999 and 2003 Rugby World Cups. Finlay plays for the Grammar TEC club in Auckland and is in the Highlanders under-20 squad.

New Scotland scrum-half was on opposing side in Six Nations

There is a call-up, too, for Asa Stewart-Harris who played for England against Scotland in this season’s Under-20 Six Nations. The Saracens scrum-half switched allegiance and featured for the first time for Scotland when he came off the bench in the loss to Wales U20 on Friday at Meggetland in the final warm-up game before the World Championship.

The inclusion of scrum-halves Fick and Stewart-Harris means Adam McKenzie misses out. McKenzie is also part of the Edinburgh Rugby academy and, at 19, has another season at this level.

Fergus Pringle, the Scotland U20 head coach, said it had been hard to whittle the squad down to 30.

Tough decisions

“In certain positions there's lots of competition, in other positions slightly less so,” said Pringle. “But I'd say across the board there's been a good group in training and guys putting their hands up, so there's been a few tough decisions in there.

“That's the not-so-nice part of a job like this, because the boys work really hard. They commit so much.”

Pringle thinks Mather’s Kiwi background can add “something a bit different”.

“He hasn't come through the system in Scotland and in some senses I would say he hasn't been over-coached in New Zealand, where they just play and express themselves on the pitch,” said Pringle. “So, hopefully what you see from him is just someone that's got a lot of intent, brings a lot of like physicality and gets really stuck in and isn't kind of second guessing himself because we play a slightly more structured game up here and there's a slightly more detail around little bits of role, clarity and execution.”

The tournament has been expanded from 12 to 16 teams this year and Scotland U20 will play their three Pool B matches in the city of Kutaisi, 137 miles west of Tbilisi. They open against Italy U20 on June 27, then take on New Zealand U20 on July 2 and Japan U20 on July 7. They will also play two classification games.

“We're realistic that it's going to be very tough,” added Pringle. “We're playing against very good teams. But I definitely feel that re-watching the [warm-up] games [against Ireland and Wales], going through them carefully, seeing the boys this weekend being really targeted on what we need to fix up, I feel that we're on the right track.”

Joe Roberts, the Glasgow Warriors hooker, and Ross Wolfenden, the Edinburgh Rugby stand-off, have been named as co-captains.

Scotland U20 fixtures and squad

Scotland U20’s Junior World Championship Pool B fixtures (UK times)

Sat 27 June: Italy v Scotland (10am)

Thur 2 July: New Zealand v Scotland (3pm)

Tues 7 July: Scotland v Japan (12.30pm)

Scotland U20 Squad

Forwards: Archie Appleby (Northampton Saints), Alfie Blackett (Cardiff Metropolitan Univ), Ollie Blyth-Lafferty (Edinburgh Rugby), Sam Byrd (Edinburgh Rugby), Oliver Finlayson-Russell (Univ of St Andrews), Dan Halkon (Glasgow Warriors), Harry Jackaman (Watsonian FC), Christian Lindsay (Edinburgh Rugby), Finlay Mather (Grammar Tec), Jamie McAughtrie (Ayr RFC), Oliver McKenna (Glasgow Warriors), Will Pearce (Bristol Bears/Cardiff Metropolitan Univ), Harvey Preston (Glasgow Hawks), Jackson Rennie (Glasgow Warriors), Joe Roberts (Glasgow Warriors; co-capt), Jamie Stewart (Edinburgh Rugby), Jack Utterson (Edinburgh Rugby).

Backs: Alex Bryden (Glasgow Warriors), Ewan Caven (Gloucester Rugby/Nottingham Univ), Jake Dalziel (Merchiston Castle School/Melrose), Matthew Fick (Edinburgh Rugby), Dan Kelly (Watsonian FC), Henry Kesterton (Edinburgh Rugby), Hamish MacArthur (Edinburgh Rugby), Rory McHaffie (Edinburgh Rugby), Nairn Moncrieff (Edinburgh Rugby), Harry Soboil (Edinburgh Rugby), Asa Stewart-Harris (Saracens), Campbell Waugh (Glasgow Hawks), Ross Wolfenden (Edinburgh Rugby; co-capt).