By Gary Heatly
Given she has an Applied Maths degree under her belt and is now a data analyst, it is perhaps no surprise that Sarah Law’s Scotland team mates joke that she works for MI5.
The 27-year-old stand-off from Penicuik is certainly intelligent off the field, but she is also very intelligent with her play on the pitch and, over the last nine years since she made her debut against England, she has become a key component of the squad who are 80 minutes away from the World Cup.
The player – who came through the ranks at her local club, Murrayfield Wanderers and Edinburgh University and is currently with Sale Sharks – has bounced back from numerous long-term injuries in that time and has kept her cool and kicked goals in two of the biggest moments in recent years: versus Wales in the Six Nations in 2017 and versus Ireland in the European World Cup qualifier in 2021.
Sarah and the squad are currently in Dubai where they will play their final World Cup qualifier in The Sevens Stadium on Friday against Colombia – who beat Kazakhstan on Saturday – in a bid to make it to the showpiece event in New Zealand in October and November.
The country has not made it to a World Cup in the women’s game since 2010 and, having been part of squads that just feel short of making the 2014 and 2017 events, Sarah wants to make it third time lucky.
And she wants to inspire the next generation by doing so.
“It would be absolutely huge to make it to a World Cup, it has been a very long nine years with some incredible lows, but some highs, and I think it would be an incredible high to get to a World Cup and perform on that stage,” the player who started out as a scrum-half, has 47 caps and works for the Scottish Government, said.
“I grew up watching men’s rugby and bits of women’s rugby. I remember seeing bits of the women’s Word Cups in 2006 and 2010 on television when I was at school and it has been 12 years now since Scotland have been at that stage.
“There is an entire generation of Scottish girls who haven’t seen Scotland on the world stage and it would be incredible for us to go out there and play on that stage and give them something to aspire to.”
https://twitter.com/Scotlandteam/status/1495050965023612933
Given they are ninth in the world, Bryan Easson’s charges will start as favourites against 26th Colombia, but they will not be taking the challenge lightly given the way the latter played to beat Kazakhstan 18-10 with 14 players for 65 minutes.
“It is something we have chatted about because it is something we have never had before, certainly we have never come into a World Cup qualifier as the favourites,” Sarah explains.
“We have had a good first week out here in Dubai, so we need to embrace it and now we can focus on doing the analysis on the opposition and building up to the game.
“There are a lot of us who have been around a while now and we have the experience of playing games, but also winning games at international level which is something that we didn’t do too much in the last two World Cup qualifying campaigns.”
The Scotland versus Columbia final World Cup qualifier (kick-off 7pm local time, 3pm UK time) will be live on BBC ALBA and World Rugby’s YouTube channel on Friday
Thanks to Rugby People for the main image of Sarah Law