Nathan Evans insists Wales under-20 are desperate to bounce back following their opening Six Nations defeat to Ireland on Friday.

Byron Hayward’s side conceded eight tries on a difficult night in Cork but now prepare to host Scotland at Parc Eirias in their first home fixture of the campaign.

Cardiff academy prop, Evans – who completed the full 80 minutes at Musgrave Park – believes his side will have learned a lot from the experience but couldn’t hide his disappointment at the result.

“It was always going to be tough, coming from Cardiff with the travel over and playing against the crowd,” said Evans.

“Ireland were the better team on the night. We made a few errors, they picked off that and were more clinical than us.

“Each player will react differently to playing in front of a crowd like that – some boys will thrive off it and other might feel under more pressure.

“But hopefully we can all learn from here and there’s more to come from us.

“It’s hard to pick out the positives immediately after the game but we need to look back at the game and review it ahead of next week.

“It’s obviously a tough start heading into a new campaign and it wasn’t nice to finish with that scoreboard.

“Hopefully we can look back at this game and turn it around for when we face Scotland on Friday. We want to right the wrongs.”

Lining up on the other side of the scrum to Evans was Cardiff Met loosehead, Joe Cowell, making his debut for Wales under-20.

The prop, who featured for Cardiff against Toulouse in December’s Heineken Champions Cup encounter, says his side were punished for their ill-discipline against Ireland but was encouraged by Wales’ determination and attitude.

Cowell added: “It was a fast game and credit to Ireland, they are a really good team. But we need to work on our discipline going into the Scotland game, because they won’t be a pushover.

“Going into next week we need to get confidence back into the jersey.

“We gave away a couple of penalties in the first 10-15 minutes, and that’s going to take its toll.

“But the boys didn’t give up for the full 80 and we can take that into next week.

“It was good to play in front of that crowd. Credit to the Irish fans for turning out, as well as the boys’ families for coming out to support as well. That makes a difference.

“We’ll go back into camp now, look at the analysis and what went well and didn’t go so well.

“We’ll fly into the week ahead of Scotland. Going forward, we’ve shown we’ve got the pride in the jersey and we won’t give up.”