Silver lining for Scotland

With the forecast showing 70mph winds for Sunday afternoon, a call was made to postpone the match for the safety of fans, staff and of course, the players.

With a busy schedule for both teams over the next few weeks the priority was to get the game played as quickly as possible. Many Scottish players had to return to work and some of them are also involved in a Scotland 7s training weekend the following week ahead of the HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Challenger Series in March.

So the decision was made to move the match to BT Murrayfield which with travel safety warnings in place and a forecast of strong winds and snow meaning it was played behind closed doors for safety concerns.

However, every cloud has a silver lining. 

The last time Scotland Women played a Test match at BT Murrayfield was in 2006 when they faced England and France as double headers after the men’s match.

To walk into the national team changing room and sing the anthems in front of just their families was a first for this generation of players.

Captain Rachel Malcolm said on the rescheduling: “It wasn’t ideal preparation. We got up on Sunday morning, completely up for the game and ready to go but sometimes there is nothing you can do about those situations. I am really proud of the way that the team and Management team have got together, and Scottish Rugby in particular, to get everything sorted for us. We had a hotel to stay in, somewhere to play the match and we even managed to get a training session sorted for the Sunday.

“The girls have shown how tight knit we are to deal with that situation and be up again for the game a day later than planned. I think credit to Scottish Rugby for getting it sorted and played in quite a historical match at BT Murrayfield.

“It was a really special occasion for me as captain to have that opportunity to lead the team out onto the pitch at BT Murrayfield.

“To be in the national changing room and to sit in the seats that some of our heroes have sat in, it was a really cool opportunity. You don’t need to work hard to get the team up for a game like that because it really was special today.”

“Sometimes these things happen for a reason.”
Rachel Malcolm

Whilst the score line wasn’t what the team were obviously wanting, Rachel can still allude to some positives.

She added: “In terms of where we are at, we definitely are moving forward, it was a better day at the office for us compared to last year but still lots of things that we need to improve on but playing against one of the best teams in the world they are going to expose those things and that is really good for us, we are going to learn from it. The set piece in particular, especially in the second half was really tough for us, we struggled to get any of our own ball. That is a big work on for us going into Italy.

“I have no doubt that the team will bounce back from this and we will keep working hard towards the next game.”
Rachel Malcolm