SCOTLAND Women’s coach Shade Munro has named an unchanged squad for the second leg of the Rugby World Cup play-off tie against Spain tomorrow, believing his players can up their game from the first leg and achieve an aggregate win.
The Scots trail 10-5 from last week’s match at Scotstoun, but finished strongly and had chances to equalise or even establish a lead to take to Madrid. Munro thinks that if they show a little more composure this time they will be able to come out on top.
“We still panic a wee bit - try to score immediately rather than being a bit more patient,” he said. “So we’ve been working on that in the last couple of sessions.
“The possession and territory stats were up last week, and historically that’s not been the case with our team - they’ve found themselves playing a lot in their own half and not getting many opportunities to play in the finish zone. We’re planning on the same tactic for getting out of our own half, and we’ve got a couple of different things we might try. We will get opportunities to be in their half and score, so a lot of time this week has been spent on attack.”
If the tie finishes in an aggregate draw, the winner will be decided by try count, then red or yellow cards, then a toss of the coin.
Scotland (v Spain in Madrid, tomorrow, noon GMT): C Rollie; M Gaffney (both Murrayfield), L Thomson (Edinburgh Uni), L Martin (Murrayfield), R Lloyd (Edin Uni); H Nelson, S Law (both Murrayfield); H Lockhart, L Skeldon (both Hillhead-Jordanhill), T Balmer (Worcester), E Wassell (Murrayfield), D McCormack (Aylesford), J Forsyth, L McMillan (both Hillhead-Jordanhill), K Dunbar (RHC). Substitutes: L Park (Murrayfield), L Smith (Hillhead-Jordanhill). K Dougan (Edin Uni), S Bonar, R Malcolm (both Lichfield), L O’Donnell (Worcester), J Maxwell (Lichfield), E SInclair (Murrayfield).
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