Scotland Under-20s: The impact of Covid, reliance on SQ players, conditioning issues but why better days are ahead

It was a sobering Six Nations for Scotland’s national sides, with the senior men’s team the only one to avoid a whitewash.

They beat England and Italy but lost to Wales, France and Ireland. The women lost all five games and so too did the men’s under-20s, for the second year in a row.

While there is a sense that the senior men underachieved and the women succeeded in their main goal of the season which was qualifying for the Rugby World Cup, the plight of the U-20s is a cause for concern.

Kenny Murray took over from Sean Lineen as Scotland U20 coach in January, a job that is part of his wider brief as head of player transition, or, as he describes it, providing a pipeline for talent to flow through.

It’s a new role and one which he sought to explain this week ahead of the Six Nations Under-20 Summer Series, an eight-team tournament that kicks off later this month and features South Africa and Georgia as well as the six titular protagonists.

Covid wasn’t kind to Scotland’s young players, many of whom went for over a year without playing any meaningful rugby as the game below elite level was placed in cold storage. For many, their return to action came in the U-20 Six Nations, a tough baptism, especially for the callow ones emerging from the under-18 age group.

Murray describes international rugby at U-20 level as “bloody hard” and says it is vital that a robust talent identification programme is in place so that the very best are coming through the pipeline. That involves nurturing the brightest native players but also scouring the globe for promising youngsters who are Scottish qualified (SQ) and he makes no apologies for picking players whose eligibility comes via their parents or grandparents.

“The SQ programme is