Kenny Murray has made six changes to his Scotland U20 team to face Italy with captain Liam McConnell ruled out through injury.

The Scotland head coach has also rotated his squad to rest Amena Caqusau, Kerr Johnston and Kerr Yule for this one with Findlay Thomson, Finlay Doyle, Ryan Burke and Hector Patterson all starting in their place as part of the changes.

The front row remains unchanged with Robbie Deans and Callum Norrie starting as props with Jerry Blyth-Lafferty continuing as hooker. Burke comes into the second row alongside Euan McVie while Ruaraidh Hart moves to blindside in place of McConnell, and is one of two co-captains alongside Geordie Gwynn.

Freddy Douglas continues at openside while Tom Currie takes his place at Number 8 ahead of Jonny Morris.

Patterson comes in for his first start of the tournament at scrum half in place of Murdoch Lock who drops to the bench, with Isaac Coates keeping his place at fly-half.

Gwynn starts in the centre beside Thomson while Fergus Watson moves to the wing to be joined by Doyle and Jack Hocking starting at full back.

It’s a 5/3 split on the bench with Lock and Morris both dropping down from the starting XV and they are joined by Gavin Parry, Callum Smyth, Ryan Whitefield, Luke Coulston, Matthew Irwin and Johnny Ventisei.

And Murray said: “The team have had a good fallow week and are ready to get stuck in again for our final two Six Nations matches.

“Again, we had a strong second half performance against England, but didn’t manage to start strong like we set out to do.

“Italy’s recent win against France highlights how strong they are at u20 level and they will be looking to build on that win in front of a passionate home crowd. It’s important that we cut out the unforced errors this week.”