Scotland’s women have slipped to ninth in the world rugby rankings, but they must keep their heads up as they get ready to travel to Australia on October 7.
The Scots have now lost seven Tests in a row after their recent WXV Global Series defeats to Canada, New Zealand and Australia at Hive Stadium in Edinburgh which followed on from Six Nations struggles earlier in the year.
As a result, they are feeling a bit bruised ahead of two more WXV Tests that are coming up down under on October 17 and October 23.
“I think it’s going to be tough in Australia, but we have some time off this week and I know the girls will come back next week determined to put things right,” captain Rachel Malcolm – whose side have only beaten Wales in 2026 – said.
“It’s really important that the girls take a minute to decompress.
“It’s been a bit of a slog between pre-season and then coming through the three recent games. I think it’s really important that we get away from each other for a minute and decompress.
“I’ve been here before and the most important thing is the strength of the group, sticking together and not turning on each other in these moments.
“It’s about looking in the mirror first and foremost and thinking ‘what are the bits that you as an individual could have done better?’ Then we will come together and look in the mirror as a team and as units within that team to see what the areas are that we can improve on.
“We’ve got a big bit of travel next week that we’re not necessarily used to so there’s going to be a lot of focus on getting that right so that we can turn up in Australia and be physically in the best possible shape.
“With Australia, it’s a three match series. They’ve obviously got the upper hand going into the next two games after we were beaten on Saturday and we need to do something pretty big to turn that around.
“But I have no doubt that myself and interim head coach Dave Butcher will work together with the coaches and the leadership team to make sure that we do everything in our power to get things right because we’ve shown that we can compete with Australia, it’s not that they are streaks above us.
“I think we beat ourselves at the weekend against Australia and we need to look at that and fix that.
“That’s the exciting bit, that there’s stuff that we can fix.”
- In the 2027 Six Nations the Scots will be playing at Sunderland AFC’s Stadium of Light ground when they head south to play England.
It has been announced that the April 17 clash will be held in the 49,000-seater venue.
Rachel Malcolm is pictured – thanks to Peter Watt Photography
It is shaping up to be an exciting 2026/27 season for women’s rugby in Scotland and GH Media will be covering it in detail – if any companies are keen to support this content please send an email to gary@gh-media.co.uk