Jules Maxton, the Scotland Women's head coach, has named four uncapped players in her squad to face Ireland, the reigning grand slam champions, in the opening match of the Six Nations Championship.
Deborah McCormack, a second-row with Richmond, is the only one of the four to feature in the starting XV but on the bench are the Murrayfield Wanderers duo Lisa Robertson and Emma Wassel, as well as Anna Stodter of Loughborough University.
The squad will still have an core of experience, with old heads Lindsay Wheeler, Heather Lockhart and Louise Dalgliesh - all of them have broken the 60 cap mark - named in the travelling 23, though Lockhart and Dalgleish will be on the bench.
Maxton, said: "The uncapped players named are those we see as having great potential for the future, with one of the aims for this season being to provide opportunities for new players moving forward over the next few seasons. It's about the balance of having experience, and developing and rebuilding our team.
"We've got the return of Ruth Slaven, Lisa Martin and Gillian Inglis, all whom have a great deal of experience and are very important. This is a new team and this weekend we want to set the standard. We can't just say we want to win, we have to look at how we achieve that."
TEAM. Scotland Women (v Ireland, Ashbourne RFC, near Dublin, Friday, 7.30)
S Johnston (Worcester); K Green (Darlington Mowden Park), A Sergeant (Richmond), G Inglis (Melrose), M Gaffney (Hillhead-Jordanhill); L Martin (Murrayfield Wndrs), S Law (Murrayfield Wndrs); T Balmer (Worcester, capt), S Quick (Murrayfield Wndrs), L Smith (Hillhead-Jordanhill), J Konkel (Hillhead-Jordanhill), D McCormack (Richmond), T Forsberg (Richmond), R Slaven (Murrayfield Wndrs), L Wheeler (Saracens). Substitutes N McLeod (Stirling County), L Robertson (Murrayfield Wndrs), H Lockhart (Hillhead-Jordanhill), E Wassel (Murrayfield Wndrs), A Stodter (Loughborough Uni), L Dalgliesh (RHC Cougars), T Griffiths (RHC Cougars), L Steven (Murrayfield Wndrs)
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article