Three matches will take place on Thursday, 11 August with Scotland taking on Wales firstly, followed by Wales v Italy and Scotland v Italy.

The games will last 45 minutes with several set rules in place to help accelerate development in certain areas of the game.

Scotland head coach Ross Miller has named a squad of 35 for the matches with 19 of the players coming into the under-18s squad for the first time. The squad were last in action in April when they played in a Six Nations Festival. During the tournament they defeated Italy, lost to France and were narrowly edged out 18-15 by England.

Ahead of the games this Thursday Ross Miller said: “The purpose of this camp is to get the group together again and continue their education to accelerate their performance and development. We will also educate them around nutrition, recovery and the use of analysis and GPS. We’ve been training at Stirling University all week which has been a brilliant base for us. We’ve set targets for the players to go after so this is a great chance for them to develop their skills and knowledge to set them up for longer term development.

“A number of the players selected for these games trained alongside England in May at an under-17s development camp and have had time off in the summer before coming back and playing with their regional academies in the last three weeks. This has given them a real platform to perform on Thursday. We are five months ahead of where we were last year which is a real positive for us.”

These matches will be the first time this group have come together as an under-18s squad but Miller is satisfied with the level of experience within the group after four players were involved in Scotland’s last competitive camp at this age group.

“Hector Patterson, Jack Brown, Johnny Ventesi and Kerr Yule were all part of the 18s squad earlier this year in France and they’ll form part of the leadership group going forward as their experiences will be vitally important.

“This is a new 18s group so after this we will have squad sessions at Christmas before playing a Six Nations festival in Ireland next April.

“The guys have been training with the Italians and the Welsh this week which has challenged the players on their skillset and decision making.

“Our training has been excellent and this is the first time we’ve done something like this. After the games on Thursday we’ll look at how we can repeat and grow this concept.”

Fixtures

Thursday, 11 August 2022, Bridgehaugh – Stirling County RFC

Scotland v Wales, kick-off: 11am
Italy v Wales, kick-off: 12 noon
Scotland v Italy, kick-off 1pm

Scotland Under-18 Squad

Forwards

Ben White * (Peebles RFC / Peebles High School)
Ollie Bowden (GHA RFC / Belmont House School)
Ollie Mckenna (GHA RFC / St Aloysius’ College)
Rob Cromar * (Howe of Fife RFC / Strathallan School)
Ollie Blyth Lafferty * (Boroughmuir RFC / Boroughmuir High School)
Ben Nehring * (Mackie RFC / Portlethen Academy)
Euan Robertson (Merchiston Castle School)
Oliver Duncan * (Edinburgh BATs Rugby / Edinburgh Academy)
Murray Oliver * (Kirkcaldy RFC)
Lewis Ferguson (Dumfries Saints)
Joss Arnold * (Loretto School)
Glen Crawford * (Merchiston Castle School)
Freddy Douglas * (Stewart’s Melville College)
Fergus Wood * (North Edinburgh Vikings / George Heriot’s School)
Euan McGeoch (Boroughmuir / Boroughmuir High School)
Brodie Macdonald (Darlington College)
Lachlan Graham * (Preston Lodge High School)
Mickey Kesson (Stirling County)
Angus Hunter (Dollar Academy) **

Backs

Hector Patterson * (Hawick RFC / Jedburgh Grammar School)
Isaac Coates * (Merschiston Castle School)
Sam Leweni (Queen Victoria School)
Matthew Urwin * (West Of Scotland FC / St Aloysius’)
Kerr Yule * (West Of Scotland FC / Boclair Academy)
Benjamin Roger * (North Edinburgh Vikings / Stewart’s Melville College)
Lloyd McEwan-Peters (Prince Henry’s Otley)
Logan Williams (Howe of Fife/Madras College)
Johnny Ventesi * (GHA RFC / St Aloysius’ College)
Archie Rankin * (Perthshire RFC / Strathallan School)
Henry Thomas (North Edinburgh Vikings / Loretto School
Pat Spence * (West Of Scotland FC / Douglas Academy
Fergus Watson * (Biggar RFC / Biggar High School)
Jack Brown * (George Watson’s College)
Hugo Alderson (Stewart’s Melville College)
Dara Falope (Rugby School)
Jack Craig * (Ayr)

*FOSROC Scottish Rugby Academy Player Supported Players
** Not available due to injury