JADE Konkel-Roberts is confident that Scotland will give it everything they have for the full match when they play Australia in Saturday’s vital Pool A clash.
After being 18-15 beaten by Wales Sunday, Scotland need to beat the Australians to have a realistic chance of reaching the quarter-finals. The sides have never met before, and are only three places apart in the world rankings, with Konkel’s 10th-placed side the lower of the two.
Scotland recovered from 15-5 down to 15-15 against the Welsh before losing to a last-gasp penalty, and can take a degree of confidence from that fightback. But Konkel-Roberts believes that they cannot allow themselves to get off to such a slow start again, and is sure that they will respond well to the pressure of needing a victory.
“We are Scottish - we love a fight,” she said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure we’re in the best place possible. There will be things that go wrong in the game; it's not going to be a perfect picture.
“It will be a full fight for 80 minutes plus. We need to give everything we have. We will be crawling off that pitch if it’s the last thing we do. We all have the same mindset and that's really exciting to go into Saturday with.”
If they are to pull off an upset and beat the Australians, Scotland will almost certainly have to emulate the inspired performances that saw them beat Spain and Ireland in the European qualifying tournament late last year. They have not played so well since, but Konkel-Roberts thinks that a self-confident approach can help them do so this time.
“They were all-or-nothing games, must-wins, and [the Australia match] is similar,” she added. “When we need to fight, we really do fight, and we’re going to throw everything we have at the game on Saturday.
“That’s what’s going to be the difference - a full buy-in, stick to our processes, and actually play our game. We can’t focus so much on the opposition all the time: we need to believe in ourselves, and we can put in that winning performance. We can attack, we can defend, we can do what needs to be done, and I fully believe that we can.”
The Scotland team will be announced early tomorrow UK time. Konkel-Roberts’ back-row colleague Rachel McLachlan, who missed out on the Wales game because of injury, is expected to return to the matchday squad.
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