Preview: England v Scotland

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - MARCH 21: Emma Orr (R) during a Scotland Women's rugby visual access session at The Oriam, on March 21, 2023, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group)

What they said

Head Coach Bryan Easson said: “We’re really excited to play against the best team in the world at a sold-out stadium in Newcastle.

“It has been really good to integrate the group back together over the last four weeks and to start kicking on for this TikTok Six Nations.

“We’ve got a lot of new young faces and lot of experience still in here, and a squad who are really excited to get going.”

The teams

The stats

• England (2.8s) and Scotland (3.3s) were the two sides with the fastest average attacking ruck speed in the 2022 TikTok Women’s Six Nations and also managed to slow down their opponents’ rucks to a greater extent than any other team in last year’s Championship.
• England (669) and Scotland (606) were the only two sides to make 600+ carries in the 2022 TikTok Women’s Six Nations.
• Scotland’s Helen Nelson was one of just two other players to register 1000+ kicking metres (1028, also Laure Sansus – 1076); Nelson also tops that same ranking in the Premier 15s this season.
• Four of the five players to hit 100+ attacking rucks in the TikTok Women’s Six Nations last year played for either of these two nations – Scotland’s Christine Belisle (107) and Sarah Bonar (103) and England’s Abbie Ward (107) and Alex Matthews (101).