Scotland Women’s hooker Lana Skeldon believe the performance against Canada in November “raised the standards” – and now she wants to help the team to a pre-Six Nations win in the Test match against Spain on Sunday.
Scotland are 11th in the world with Spain ninth ahead of the meeting at the Complutense National Stadium in Madrid.
It is Scotland’s last of three Tests prior to the Six Nations starting at home to Italy on February 1.
In November the lost 38-0 away in Calvisano to Italy and then bounced back to perform much better a few weeks later against Canada, being edged out just 28-25 at Scotstoun.
Skeldon, the Hawick-raised front-row who now plays for Watsonians, is set to win her 29th international cap this weekend.
“It is going to be really high intensity, really physical and hopefully we will do enough to get that win,” she said.
“We learned in Italy that if we don’t come out with the right aggression in our game we are going to be punished – that is what the Italians did to us.
“When we play with that aggression and that intensity like we did against Canada, it showed what we can do. If we connect as a team we can really put that high level of performance out there.
“We are really looking forward to playing against Spain, we have really developed a lot since we played them in the World Cup qualifiers in 2016 in terms of knowledge within the squad.
“We had a really young squad back then, but have a similar group now going forward with a lot of experience within in the pack and especially within our backline.
“We aim to make the most of that experience and use it as a weapon against Spain.”
And the 25-year-old believes her and her pack mates are starting to carry more ball as a unit these days.
“Over the last six or seven months a lot of us have been stepping up and carrying going forward,” she said.
“We have so many options now to carry that ball and it is exciting.”
Spain v Scotland kicks off at 12.30pm local time (11.30am GMT) on Sunday and can be watched here http://www.rtve.es/directo/teledeporte/
Thanks to Rugby People for the main photo
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