Scotland Under-20s face Six Nations whitewash - 'we need to put two together against Ireland'

Jonny Morris in action for Scotland Under-20s during last year's clash with Ireland.

Scotland cannot afford to play for just 40 minutes and must not sit on their heels early on if they are to get anything at all from tonight’s daunting under-20 Six Nations match in Ireland, says back-rower Jonny Morris.

Morris came off the bench last Friday in the 64th minute versus Italy, but was powerless to stop the hosts who were on their way to a 47-14 win in Treviso. The 19-year-old, who came through the ranks at Perthshire and Strathallan School and now plays for Glasgow Warriors, starts against the Irish in Cork as the bottom of the table Scots look to get their first win of the campaign.

It will be no easy task at Virgin Media Park against a second placed Irish side fighting it out with England for the title and Morris said: “First of all, we need to look back at the past few games. We’ve played two varying halves of rugby pretty much in every fixture and we’ve told ourselves we need to put two together – a good performance in the first half and in the second half – in this Irish game.

“This week we have also spoken a lot about throwing the first metaphorical punch. We don’t want to sit on our heels in the first 10 or 20 minutes waiting for them to do something and then react. We really want to be proactive this week and go hard at set piece, test them out wide and just take it to them.”

The match kicks-off at 7pm and will be on BBC Sport.

Scotland under-20: Jack Brown, Finlay Doyle, Johnny Ventisei, Findlay Thomson, Geordie Gwynn (C-C); Isaac Coates, Hector Patterson; Callum Smyth, Jerry Blyth-Lafferty, Callum Norrie, Euan McVie, Ruaraidh Hart (C-C), Jonny Morris, Freddy Douglas, Tom Currie. Subs: Marcus Brogan, Robbie Deans, Ryan Whitefield, Archie Clarke, Monroe Job, Eric Davey, Andrew McLean, Finn Douglas.