IRELAND under-20’s winger Alex O’Meara has joined Taunton Titans on loan from Cornish Pirates ahead of Saturday’s trip to Bishops Stortford in National Two South.

The 22-year-old former Hartpury Student joined the Pirates in the summer, but has made just one start so far this season at Championship level – and Titans head coach, Tony Yapp is hoping the young flyer can make an immediate impact.

Yapp said: “We still have a few guys unavailable through injury - both wings Aron Struminski and Jack Claydon are still out and we hope they'll be back in the next few weeks.

“Tom Popham has still got a few issues after his concussion and is likely to be out for some time. “Matt Tichias is also still out with a hip injury although we are hopeful that Toby East will be fit in time for Saturday after tweaking his hamstring two weeks ago.

“So we needed to get some cover and are delighted to be able to welcome Alex to the Titans and look forward to seeing how he plays.

“I have heard some great things about him and hopefully this will help him push on.”

After last weekend’s midday postponement of the Cambridge game, Titans are on their travels again this weekend against third-place Bishops Stortford – and Yapp is expecting another tough afternoon.

He said: “This week things don't get any easier with a very tough away trip to Bishops Stortford, who sit just above us and are arguably one of the form teams in the league after recent wins against Cambridge and OA's.

“Over the last few seasons, coach Andy Long - who is a former team mate of mine from many moons ago - has got Bishops playing a brand of rugby which is always tough to break down.

“They are well organised and play with a real willingness to move the ball and have ago, add to this a great work ethic and you have the ingredients of a good team that are going to win more games than they lose.”

Taunton Titans have scored some great tries this season and their hard work has paid off after Jon Gatford’s effort Southend was awarded Samsung’s January try of the Month – see countygazette.co.uk/sport for the video.

The Cambridge fixture has now been scheduled for Saturday, February 27 with a 3pm kick-off, while the Cornish All Blacks fixture has been arranged for Saturday, March 12 with an earlier than normal kick-off of 2pm.

TITANS fly-half Joe Simmonds (pictured) kicked two penalties as England's defence of their Under 20 Six Nations Championship title got off to a bad start, losing 24-6 to Scotland at Cumbernauld.

Scotland led 12-6 at the break with tries from full back Blair Kinghorn in the corner and Murray McCallum under the posts.

Simmonds added two penalties from the tee for England – who also lost captain Jack Walker to the sin bin on the stroke of half time.

The hosts then scored 12 unanswered points as forwards Scott Cummings and Matt Smith both bundled over while Kinghorn added to his first-half conversion to take his personal tally to nine.

The scrum was a huge area of success for England on an otherwise disappointing night and Head Coach Jon Callard said his side were guilty of not playing to their strengths.

“Scotland were hungry and credit to them for the way they played - they were committed and forced errors," he said.

"We had a lot of possession but they capitalised on our mistakes and the more the game went on, the more we chased it, and the more Scotland fed off that.

“I thought our scrum was excellent and we should have played on that more. Our line out was also winning us good ball but our driving play wasn’t where it should be and we were too often disjointed.

“I’ve got great belief in this young group of players. We’ve been in this situation before and bounced back and now we need to see this as an opportunity to do that again. We need to dust ourselves off, regroup and move forwards into the rest of the Championship.”