NORTH Ribblesdale product Jack Walker's reign as England Under-20 skipper got off to a bad start in Cumbernauld.

The holders were beaten 24-6 by Scotland at Broadwood Stadium, and former Prince Henry's Grammar School pupil Walker was sin-binned on the stroke of half-time as Scotland gained their first under-20 victory over England in 12 attempts.

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

Joe Simmonds kicked two penalties for England but the hosts then scored 12 unanswered points as forwards Scott Cummings and Matt Smith were both bundled over, while Kinghorn added to his first-half conversion to take his personal tally to nine.

It was also the first time that Scotland had won four games in a row at that level.

Yorkshire Carnegie flanker Josh Bainbridge admitted it was a disappointing scoreline to open their RBS Six Nations campaign with but said the side never gave up.

“There is a negative in the loss but going forward there are huge positives," he said.

"In the last 20 minutes, we never gave up and did the jersey as much justice as we could with the scoreline.”

The scrum was a huge area of success for England on an otherwise disappointing night and head coach Jon Callard, a former Leeds Tykes player, 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.”

England face Italy tomorrow (Friday) at Stadio Pacifici, San Dona' Di Piave (7.10pm).