Holly McIntyre has two reasons to be cheerful right now.
One, after a tough 18 months and more dealing with injuries she is back on the rugby pitch and scoring tries and, two, she will be graduating from university next week.
In terms of the rugby side of things, every Scottish women’s rugby supporter was delighted to see the Edinburgh University and Edinburgh Rugby centre playing so well against England on Saturday for the under-20s.
The English side came out on top 31-17 in the Six Nations Women’s Summer Series opener in Ystrad Mynach’s Centre for Sporting Excellence in Wales in the end, but McIntyre scored a well-worked try and was an attacking threat from 13.
It has been quite a time for her.
Back in late 2023, McIntyre was named in the full Scotland squad for the WXV 2 event in South Africa.
However, disaster struck for the young, uncapped talent when she suffered ACL and meniscus injuries to her knee before the squad departed.
That meant a year out for her and more on that particular journey can be read here.
McIntyre worked incredibly hard on her rehab and, by late 2024, she was playing BUCS Super Rugby games for her university side.
However, just before Christmas, she played 54 minutes for Edinburgh on her debut for them in a Celtic Challenge win over Glasgow Warriors at Hive Stadium before suffering another meniscus injury.
More surgery was required, but in recent times the 22-year-old – she is one of five overage (U23) players with the under-20s squad in Wales – has been training and playing with the age-grade squad.
“This is really my return to play, but second time around after more surgery and I am feeling so much better,” she said.
“It’s been really nice being immersed in this under-20s programme of late and having something to really focus on rugby-wise apart from rehab.
“I’d had a couple of chats with Daggy [head coach Louise Dalgliesh] before the programme started about what I wanted to get out of this and why I wanted to do it – it’s really ticked every box for me.
“I’ve really been loving the rugby that we’ve been playing and the training has been super fun and of a really high quality.
“We have had meetings since the England game and we are pretty happy with how the game went. We felt like we put in a good display and showed what we’d been up to in training. We were really pretty happy with our bravery in the contact area and our physicality.
“We definitely stretched them in some areas and there is positive mood in the group and we are looking forward to getting into Wales in the next game.”
McIntyre bagged the first of Scotland’s three tries in the England game after a neat kick from centre partner Lucy MacRae.
Lucy and I have played quite a bit of rugby together now,” the Ayr product, who previously played for the Thistles and the Futures, stated.
“We’re super keen to put those kind of kicks in that pressure defences when the chance is there and the coaches push us to be experimental with those spaces and really back ourselves.
“To be honest though, that try that goes all the way down to the forwards, they created the space for it with hard work and that’s a dream as an edge player.
In terms of her graduation, well McIntyre has just completed her interior design studies in the capital.
And, at some point next week before the Ireland match, she will be hotfooting it back to Edinburgh and then back to Wales in a day to attend her graduation.
“It’s luckily fallen on our day off day off so I’m just flying there and back in a day to be a part of the graduation which will be good,” she concluded.
McIntyre and co have Wales to play next on Friday (6pm) and then they will face Ireland on July 17 (1pm).
Scotland supporters will be able to follow every moment of the action from the Summer Series as all matches will be streamed live on the Six Nations under-20 YouTube channel and the Scottish Rugby website.
The matchday 23 to take on Wales is due to be named on Thursday.
Scotland’s under-20 squad for the Six Nations Women’s Summer Series
Forwards: Emily Coubrough, Karis Craig, Lily Crisp, Eilidh Fleming, Poppy Fletcher, Merryn Gunderson, Megan Hyland, Kaylee McHugh, Sophie Price, Megan Riach, Charlotte Russell, Aicha Sutcliffe, Faye Sutherland, Louise Taperell, Gemma Thomson, Isobel Twigger, Holly Wilson, Aisha Zameer.
Backs: Ceitidh Ainsworth, Lisa Brown, Rianna Darroch, Rebekah Douglas, Nicole Flynn, Scarlett Haddow, Emily Love, Freya MacColl, Lucy MacRae, Holly McIntyre, Poppy Mellanby, Emily Norval.
Tickets for Scotland-England at Murrayfield in April 2026 can be purchased here.
Holly McIntyre is pictured – thanks to Scottish Rugby
GH Media has covered Scotland women’s journey to this point and will be covering Scotland women’s journey right through to the end of the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025, bringing insight from within the camp throughout and featuring other parts of the game in this country too – thanks to those already supporting the content, if you or your company would like to get involved please email gary@gh-media.co.uk