WXV 2 Matt finish would put gloss on 2024

Now, a year into his coaching journey with the squad, Banahan shared his reflections with scottishrugby.org, offering a glimpse into the passion and purpose driving the team.

“I love coaching Scotland, I am excited every day by this group”, said Banahan.

“When I came in, for me, my hopes were to coach a group of players who wanted to get better and reflecting on that, that’s 100 percent what this group has done. For me, my next challenge is how I can push this group to take it to that next level because we want to be the best we can be.”

Banahan’s arrival came just as the team was building momentum, with key wins at the end of the 2023 Women’s Six Nations.

“Before I came in the door the team had won their games against Italy and Ireland, so they got the ball rolling. The people who deserve the recognition and reward for the change in results are the players.

“They are fantastic with their approach to learning. Since I’ve come in, they’ve shown they are so coachable, they take information in and produce it on the training pitch.”

Over the last year, the Scottish Rugby pathway has seen developments with the Celtic Challenge expanding to two home-based teams, Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors, as well as a Scotland Women U20 side competing in the Six Nations Summer Series, which Banahan notes has had a great impact for the senior side.

“The opportunities the players are taking at their clubs or with Celtic Challenge and the exposure they are gaining through the pathway, that’s where the credit is due”, said Banahan.

“We’re seeing these youngsters coming through who are challenging the players who have been here a while, and that is pushing everyone forward.

“These younger players coming in over the last six months are the first age group who are benefitting from that fully formed pathway of accessing both physical development in the gym as well as skills through their training.”

Looking ahead to Scotland three Test matches against Italy, Japan and Australia in WXV 2, Banahan is excited to see the team perform once more on a world stage, adding: “We have three fantastic opportunities coming up at WXV 2 to prove that we aren’t the Scotland of old, we are the Scotland of new.

“The ability we have, the maturity that we have, it is fantastic. The selection decisions we now have are so tough because people are performing and that’s because they’re now used to being in a professional environment.

“Obviously in my role I’ve been adding in some of the detail to attack and I think we’ve been scratching the surface for the last year. Now going into my second year with the team, I think if you look at our performances against Wales and Fiji, we’ve been showing the opportunities we can create.

“We know we left some points out there in our Vodafone Series matches, so to come away scoring as many tries as we did but knowing we left some out there, that’s what we want to be doing.”

Banahan also reflected on the strides made over the past year, highlighting the team’s historic achievements, adding: “Since I’ve been here this group has created so much history from their WXV 2 win last year, record-breaking crowds, back-to-back wins against Italy, their first Test match against Fiji, so hopefully we’ll see more milestones in 14 months ahead of us, starting here at WXV 2.”

Watch all three of Scotland’s WXV 2 matches live on BBC iPlayer or via rugbypass.tv, and keep up with live coverage on Scottish Rugby’s social media channels at match centre via scottishrugby.org.

Italy v Scotland, DHL Stadium, Saturday 28 September, kick-off 2pm BST
Japan v Scotland, Athlone Stadium, Saturday 5 October, kick-off 1pm BST
Australia v Scotland, Athlone Stadium, Saturday 12 October, kick-off 4pm BST