Scotland women’s captain Rachel Malcolm wants her players to be fully focused on their big clash with Australia this coming weekend from Monday morning off the back of a heavy defeat to New Zealand.
On Saturday, New Zealand scored 10 tries to Scotland’s two to record a comfortable win at Hive Stadium in Edinburgh in the WXV Global Series match.
It means that Scotland have now lost 64-26 to third in the world Canada and 66-14 to the world number two Black Ferns so far in the WXV window.
But, rather than being downhearted, back-row Malcolm has asked her charges to take the positive bits from the two games and really put everything they have got into the seventh in the world versus ninth in the world clash with the Wallaroos that is coming up at the Hive.
The teams will meet on Saturday and Malcolm said: “I think when you play two of the best teams in the world to start the season, you certainly blow the cobwebs away a little bit.
“And I would definitely say the New Zealand game felt a lot less like a kind of pre-season game and we felt a lot more match fit.
“I think we looked a lot sharper and our instincts were getting back to where we need them to be.
“I’ve no doubt that Australia are going to come out and be looking for the win against us, they’re a fantastic team, but I think we can take a lot of positives from the last two weeks.
“We’ll look at the New Zealand game back and see where they stung us and try and fix those areas going into the next game.
“The best thing about being a part of any Scotland women’s team is that you’re always going to have the character to stand up, face up to a challenge and work hard for each other.”
Against New Zealand, No.8 Evie Gallagher scored both of Scotland’s tries and they were converted by stand-off Helen Nelson while second-row Holland Bogan impressed.
Australia lost out 29-26 at the weekend in France.
Interim head coach Dave Butcher said ahead of the Wallaroos match: “That’s the whole focus at the minute, it’s going to be great.
“Australia are a very, very good team so it is another opportunity for us to really challenge ourselves and grow.
“As a coaching staff we are looking at the last two games over and from Monday we will start building in terms of where we think we can optimise our performance next time out.
“And we’re not changing anything, I want to be really clear on that. We’re playing a certain way to get outcomes eventually.
“But the growth that the players have had over these last two weeks has been fantastic.
“Now we need to start looking at how we switch that growth into getting more positive outcomes.”
Next up in the final game of the Vodafone Scotland WXV Series campaign – part of the wider WXV Global Series presented by Mitsubishi Electric featuring the top sides in the world – for Scotland is Australia on September 26 at the Hive.
Scotland’s away WXV Global Series fixtures will take place against Australia on October 17 and October 23.
Rachel Malcolm defending versus New Zealand alongside Evie Gallagher – thanks to Scottish Rugby
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