"Loud crowd” - Lucas Friday and Kevin Sorrell on England U20s’ Scotland challenge

England’s win was built on resilience and composure, recovering from a 16–0 deficit at half-time to edge past Wales 19–16 in Northampton. Scotland, meanwhile, produced a more straightforward performance, travelling to Italy and returning with a convincing away victory that underlined their physicality and efficiency.

Assistant coach Kevin Sorrell, who made more than 250 appearances for Saracens during his playing career and toured Argentina with the senior England squad in 2002, acknowledged that England’s slow start against Wales provided valuable lessons.

“I think a lot of stuff around our actions and the consequence of it. How we fed them and allowed them to access for points, some learnings around that really. They felt it around half-time, so that was the positive thing that they were on the same page as us and we were able to come to a solution.”

That ability to respond under pressure will be tested again in Edinburgh, where Scotland traditionally draw energy from a vocal home crowd. While England’s analysis of the opposition has been limited, Sorrell stressed that internal growth remains the priority.

“We've only had one game of theirs to look at, but it was a good win against Italy over there. I suppose we've tipped our hat towards them but a lot of it has been around what we can do and how we can layer on our game, because that's what we want to see over the course of the Six Nations is that week on week, we're getting a high level of performance and seeing improvements from our own game.”

At scrum-half, 19-year-old Lucas Friday starts again for England, continuing a rapid rise that has already seen him debut in the Prem, Champions Cup and claim a World Rugby U20 Championship title in 2024. The Harlequins youngster, son of former Wasps scrum-half and sevens coach Mike Friday, is increasingly comfortable taking responsibility within the group and was rewarded with Player of the Match against Wales.

“Definitely over time it has a little bit. Connor's [Treacey] a brilliant captain and how he leads from the front for the team is excellent and helps us get on the front foot and be a collective together. Leadership wise, I want to put myself forward.”

Friday also credits regular conversations with his father for sharpening his understanding of the game.

“We have a lot of chats about the game and stuff like that and we go through the game after to see stuff that I could have done better and stuff I could have done worse. It gets a good, different perspective on things and allows me to go onto things in the game better. It helps in terms of offering me an opinion on what I think.”

Having never played in Edinburgh before, Friday is braced for a fierce atmosphere.

“Probably a pretty loud crowd, it's going to be a pretty hostile environment over there so just as a team, how calm and collected we can be in that scenario and how we can stick to what we know and stick to our gameplan and what we want to do, all the external environment, external factors, just focus on us and how we can perform well.”