Scotland A head coach Sean Lineen highlighted the positives that emerged from the team’s 34-19 defeat by Ireland Wolfhounds at Ravenhill but believes that the visitors were the chief architects behind their loss.

The away side, which fielded 10 uncapped senior Scotland internationalists, were rewarded for employing an enterprising brand of rugby with second half scores from flanker James Eddie and replacement wing Mark Robertson plus a late penalty try.

But Ireland ran in a flurry of breakaway tries and exploited some misplaced passes to secure the victory; much to the frustration of Lineen.

Lineen said: “There were a lot of good performances, but I was very disappointed with the result.

“We played like a team that had not been together very long and all of their five tries came from us giving them the ball.

“I was pleased with certain aspects, but all five of Ireland’s tries came from our mistakes.

“Ireland’s tries came from four turnovers and one aimless kick which they successfully counterattacked.”

Up front, Scotland A dominated with referee Pascal Gauzere awarding the men in blue a penalty try and also handing Wolfhounds’ prop Marcus Horan a yellow card in the final minute.

Lineen acknowledges that Scotland A’s front five were assertive in the scrum, but underlined the team's need to secure possession successfully in the contact areas.

He added: “Our scrum was good; I thought Jon Welsh, Kyle Traynor and Euan Murray all got stuck in there.

“We need to look at how we look after the ball because basically we coughed up the ball far too many times.

“The intensity was like a Test match. The boys were blown away after the first 15 minutes.

“We hadn’t played a match beforehand while Ireland were coming back off a loss at England away, so they were pumped up.

“The players will have learned a lot from the experience and what is required to succeed in international rugby.”

The Wolfhounds raced into an early lead after Irish captain Chris Henry scored after Tony Buckley ignited a smart counterattacking move and Darren Cave dispensed the decisive pass.

Looking sharp and mobile, the Wolfhounds then extended their advantage with a penalty from the effervescent Ian Humphreys.

Scotland A decided to kick for territory after dominating the scrums, but an agonizingly large amount of line-out ball ended up in the hands of a green-shirted player.

The away side kept plugging away and seemed to have made the all-important breakthrough mid-way through the first half when Ben Cairns jinked his way over to score.

But the referee chalked off the effort and moments later livewire full-back Gavin Duffy attacked the line at full tilt before paving the way through for Fergus McFadden to score.

At this point, Scotland A were staring at a 17-0 deficit – a huge mountain to climb for any team.

But after the break, the away side managed to score against 14-man Ireland Wolfhounds (lock Devlin Toner had been sin-binned).

A quick tap penalty caught the home side napping and Eddie dotted down in the corner.

Unfortunately Jackson’s penalty rattled against the woodwork rather than sailing between the posts, but the effort handed Scotland A some hope.

But that was shortlived because McFadden, again linking with the purposeful Duffy, ran through to score his second try of the contest.

It seemed every piece of innovative play served up by Scotland A was ultimately undone by a misplaced pass or misjudged run and the away side’s possession did not translate into points.

Finally a side-step from Jim Thompson enabled replacement Robertson to dot down underneath the posts – the culmination of a series of slick phases upfield.

Wolfhounds’ replacement Isaac Boss scored another quickfire breakaway try for the home side before Scotland A were awarded a penalty try.

Then with the final act of the match Johne Murphy rounded off the scoring with another piece of opportunist play – seizing on a Scottish mistake to score.

Scotland A: Thompson, Walker, Cairns, De Luca, Houston, Jackson, Blair (capt), Welsh, Hall, Murray, MacLeod, J Hamilton, Eddie, Gray, Grant
Replacements: Kelly (for Hall), Traynor (for Welsh), C Hamilton (for MacLeod), McKenzie (for Jackson), Laidlaw (for Blair), Dewey (for De Luca), Robertson (for Walker).

Ireland A: Duffy; Murphy, Cave, McFadden, Dowling; Humphreys, Stringer; Horan, Cronin, Buckley; Caldwell, Toner; Tuohy, Jennings, Henry.
Replacements: Brady, Ross, O'Donoghue, Ronan, Boss, Keatley, Matthews.