Skipper Rachel Malcolm says the Scotland squad need to stick together this week ahead of their Guinness Women’s Six Nations clash with world number one side England.
Scotland would have been hoping to have been going into the round four clash against the Red Roses, who have won the last six Six Nations titles and are unbeaten in 2025, in Leicester on Saturday off the back of a home win over Italy.
However, the Scots were not themselves at Hive Stadium on Sunday and the Italians took a deserved 25-17 bonus point third round triumph to leave the hosts sitting fifth in the standings with one win and two losses to their name.
“The main thing at the start of this week is bringing the girls together,” Malcolm said.
“It can be quite easy after games like that where we potentially went in as favourites and have come out on the wrong end of the scoreline to become a little bit fractured.
“But from my experience over the recent years the strength in this group often comes from how well we bounce back from disappointing situations. We have been here before, more times than we would have liked, and we know how to deal with things like this and turn them around.
“The plan was to come together on Sunday night in a more social setting back at the team base and just get everyone together and remind ourselves why we do this.
“That’s the most important thing for us, this group means a huge amount to us all as does playing for our country and as we are going up against the best team in the week this coming Saturday we need to be together and on the same page.
“We also need to recover well in the early part of this week, get our bodies right and then we can look at the mistakes from the Italy game and stick together and work together in every aspect of things to prepare as best we can for England.
“We don’t need to panic, we just need to get the basics right and do what we do day in and day out at training on a game day.
“We will stick together in the coming days and be back stronger.”
Reflecting on the Italy defeat, back-rower Malcolm added: “I just don’t think we were good enough in every facet of the game.
“Every team – even the best team in the world – has their off days and unfortunately this was ours.
“For whatever reason defensively we maybe didn’t have the same want and desire that we’ve prided ourselves on. It’s definitely a little bit of a kick in the teeth. This one hurts because I just don’t think we performed well.
“Don’t get me wrong, Italy played very well, so full credit to them. But I don’t think we did the shirt proud and that hurts.”
The Guinness Women’s Six Nations runs from March 22 to April 26 and, next up at home, Scotland are at Hive Stadium in round five versus Ireland on the final day – get tickets here.
Scotland are pictured in a huddle post-Italy match – thanks to Mark Brown
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