Scotland A 13 Italy A 7

SCOTLAND A scored all their points in the first 25 minutes and then hung on grimly in a desperate rearguard action to secure a narrow victory over Italy at McDiarmid Park in Perth last night.

The Scots raced to a 13-0 lead early on with some enterprising rugby but did all their work in defence in a scoreless second half as the Italians battered at the defensive wall but failed to break through.

The Italians missed all four of their kickable penalties which cost them dear as their bigger pack wore down the Scots in the second half, but there were outstanding defensive displays from Alasdair Strokosch and centre Ben MacDougall in particular.

Simon Danielli scored the home side’s try and had two other exciting breaks, but it was a series of defensive stands in their own 22 that won the game.

Coach Shade Munro said the players were mostly disappointed with the performance.

“We wanted to get the ball wide and it worked early on, but we lost our way after 25 minutes and the setpiece somewhat fell apart,” he admitted.

“Defensively we remained pretty strong but we could have had three tries in the first half hour and when the points didn’t come we got a little panicky with the ball in hand.”

MacDougall made two impressive early interventions in defence and then attack that helped the Scots to a speedy 10-0 advantage.

The Borders centre made the thumping tackle to force an early penalty kicked by Gordon Ross and then his super pass out of the tackle sprung Danielli outside his marker and around the leaden-footed full-back Ezio Galan for a superbly worked try, converted by the captain.

Ross missed a penalty but landed another from point-blank range after another strong run by Danielli as Andrea Marcato missed two penalties for Italy.

However, MacDougall was forced off with a knee knock for 10 minutes and Italy took advantage of his absence as centres Patrizio and Barbini combined well for the latter to twist over and Marcato nailed the conversion from the touchline.

Ross missed an easy chance to stretch the lead by hitting the post with a penalty in front of the posts just after the break as the Italian pack started to play with renewed vigour and the Scots were forced to hang on in defence for long spells.

Blood injuries to Ross and MacDougall disrupted Scotland further, but solid defence within their own 22 kept the Italians out as Marcato missed a third penalty.

Scotland continued to struggle to find their early fluency but Italy’s dominance wasn’t reflected when replacement Luciano Orquera hooked a straightforward penalty wide of the left upright.

The Scots were forced to defend a scrum-five on their own line but the danger was cleared after a poor cross-kick from Orquera and a few nervy moments later Scotland held on for the victory.

Attendance—1590.

Scotland A—R Kydd (B Cairns 67); S Danielli, G Morrison (C MacRae 73), B MacDougall, R Lamont; G Ross (capt), R Chrystie (C Gregor 78); R Grant (E Kalman 62), F Thomson (A Kelly 62), M Low; A Hall (M Rennie 62), S MacLeod; A Strokosch, D Macfadyen (J Barclay 47), J Beattie.

Italy A—E Galon; W Pozzebon, E Patrizio (M Nitoglia 60), M Barbini, A Galante; A Marcato, M Mazzantini (S Picone 66 (L Orquera 72)); M Aguero (L Cittadini 70), L Ghiraldini, F Staibano; C Bezzi, M Vella; D Dal Maso (capt), R Barieri (A Burchill 69), G Padro (F Pavanello 77).

Ref—P Fitzgibbon (IRFU).