Beth Blacklock has announced her retirement from international rugby.
The centre, 28, will continue her domestic career at Saracens in the English PWR.
She earned six caps for Scotland, making her final appearance against Fiji at the Rugby World Cup in England last year.
Blacklock, who qualified for Scotland thanks to a mum from Barrhead, grew up on Mersea Island in Essex and was taken to the local club in Colchester to get involved with the Minis at a young age, but she and her sister decided to give rugby up after a while and tried other sports.
These included football, cricket, sailing and swimming through her teens and it was not until she headed north to Durham for university that rugby came back into her life.
Current Scotland cap Coreen Grant was captain of the university first XV at the time and got Blacklock involved again in rugby and the rest is history.
Blacklock captained Durham’s first XV at one point and went on to play for Darlington Mowden Park Sharks before heading south to play for Harlequins and then current club Saracens. She has also turned out for Glasgow Warriors in the Celtic Challenge at times.
In terms of Scotland, well she made her debut in the Women’s Six Nations opener away against England in March 2023 and then won two more caps during that competition before then having to wait over two years for cap number four in the World Cup warm up game against Ireland last year.
She then earned selection for the World Cup in England where she came off the bench versus Wales and against Fiji.
Away from rugby Blacklock has had a flourishing career as a data engineer and aspires to become a pilot.
Speaking on her decision, Scotland cap number 234 said: “I am so incredibly excited about the next steps that Scotland women are going to take after having been involved during the January camp and seeing the dream which the new team of staff have built and are passionate to work towards. I honestly cannot wait to support them.
“However, after taking a long time and speaking to friends and family, I have made the step to leave international rugby and pursue other routes with rugby before I’m ready to hang up my boots and start my next dream career in flying.
“I am so proud of myself and the girls for what we have done together and where we got to, but the next steps that I have are in a different – and very exciting – direction.
“Playing in a Rugby World Cup so close to home was a dream come true. It was my goal for so long to get to that World Cup last year and to be able to go and then also have the honour of representing Scotland on the field was a surreal and life changing experience.
“Rugby has always been part of my life for shorter than it should have been – being distracted by other sports on my way to finding it properly – but I’m so glad that I did. I have some close friends to thank for that and my family’s support. They led me to rugby and then helped me fall in love with it and the people in it.
“Thank you to all of my friends and family for supporting me through all of my rugby steps and thank you to Scotland and Scotland women for building me a family and home. I feel very lucky and blessed to have the family I have, both through blood and through rugby.”
Blacklock joins Christine Belisle, Lisa Cockburn, Jade Konkel and Caity Mattinson in retiring from international rugby – or the game completely – since being involved with the Scots at last year’s World Cup.
The Men’s Six Nations and the U20 Six Nations may be over, but the Women’s Six Nations is coming soon and runs from April 11 to May 17. The Scotland squad is here.
Beth Blacklock is pictured at the Rugby World Cup squad announcement last year– thanks to N50 Photography
GH Media will be covering Scotland’s Women’s Six Nations campaign from start to finish in detail – if any companies are keen to support this content please send an email to gary@gh-media.co.uk