women
international women
The WXV Global Series is here and Scotland they started their campaign with a 64-26 loss Canada at the Hive Stadium.
Despite showing plenty of heart and determination, with tries from Evie Gallagher, Shona Campbell, Lana Skeldon and Rhona Lloyd, Dave Butcher’s side could not do enough to overcome the women’s Rugby World Cup Finalists 2025 Canada.
Speaking after the defeat, Scotland captain Rachel Malcolm explained: “To some degree we feel the disappointment. They (Canada) probably won the physical battle on both sides of the ball and we knew Canada were a World Cup finalist and probably have one of the best attacks in the world, so we always knew it was going to be.
“We came into the game a little bit, especially in that second half. That’s the benchmark for us today, so the most important thing is how we look at it and how we respond next week.
“We can take positive results from how we made something out of nothing today. The tries we scored weren’t the most clinical or the prettiest, but we found a way to cross the try line, and it’s about having those moments, but also building more phases,” she added.
“We want to see more phase play and control especially in those middle thirds, but that will come.
“Players like Katie Buchanan and Ceitidh Ainsworth have a big future for us and they’ve done brilliantly off the bench.
“It’s really important to get them blooded and experienced, so they did really well.”
Looking ahead to the rest of the WXV Global Series, the Scotland captain said: “We want to build on the performances, we want to look at areas of our game and we’ve got a whole new coaching staff so it’s about learning how they want us to play as well.
“These first three games (Canada, New Zealand and Australia) are very much about that development and the other two games (both against Australia) are all about performance and results, so it gives us a nice break in the middle of that.
“We know that every team we have in this tournament will push us to our absolute limits, so at the end of the day we have to do our best to compete at all.
“I think we saw bits and pieces of that today, but next week hopefully we’ll see patches and a lot more,” concluded the experienced winger.
Scotland will now prepare to take on the Black Ferns, who played a convincing 28-14. France in their opening game, on Saturday 19 September at the Hive Stadium in Edinburgh.
