SCOTLAND are set to play in front of a record home crowd against Ireland tomorrow as they bid to end their TikTok Women’s Six Nations campaign with a second consecutive victory. Over 4000 tickets have already been sold for the match at Edinburgh’s DAM Health Stadium, a total that will surpass the current record, set against England last year, of 3988.
That figure may be dwarfed by the 53,000 already sold for England’s Grand Slam decider against France, also tomorrow, but it is an indication, nonetheless, of the positive direction that Scotland are moving in after a difficult year. Last week’s 29-21 win over Italy brought an end to a losing run of 12 games in all competitions, and was a real step forward for a team who had become wearily accustomed to ending up on the wrong side of close results.
Head coach Bryan Easson has made only one change to his 23 to face Ireland, bringing centre Emma Orr back after she missed out last week because of concussion. The 20-year-old replaces Lisa Thomson, who has returned to GB Sevens duty.
Easson explained that he believed the squad who were on duty last week merited re-selection, but at the same time insisted that there was no time to dwell on the win over the Italians.
“We went for consistency this week in terms of team selection, and after last weekend’s win against Italy the players deserve the chance to build on that performance,” he said. “It’s brilliant to see Emma Orr returning for the finale. We know Ireland will throw everything at us, but we know what to expect and will be ready for the challenge. We’ve focussed on ourselves this week and if we get our processes right, the outcome will take care of itself.
“Coming into a camp this week with a victory brought us a huge amount of energy. The big thing for us was to make sure that we took that energy positively into this performance.
“We didn’t want to dwell on last week’s game. We packaged it, we said ‘Well done’, but then it was a case of ‘Right, OK, let’s put that in a bag, let’s zip the bag up, and let’s move on to the next one’.
“We know this is going to be a difficult fixture. We know that we’re going to have to get ourselves right.”
A second bonus-point win in a row would guarantee the Scots fourth place in the final Championship table, behind England, France and Wales. A simple win might also be enough, depending on the result of the game earlier in the day between Italy and Wales. England and France, both unbeaten so far, kick off the afternoon at Twickenham.
“Our fans have been a constant source of support through the highs and lows,” captain Rachel Malcolm added. ”So to get the opportunity to run out in front of a home record crowd in the last game of the TikTok Women’s Six Nations is a huge boost and we will do everything in our power to make them proud on Saturday.”
Ireland have lost all four of their matches to date, most recently going down 48-0 at home to England. Head coach Greg McWilliams has stuck with the same 15 that started that match,
but made a change on the bench,
where fit-again Dorothy Wall replaces Jo Brown.
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