Ireland game has given us belief to beat Wales, says Scots skipper

● Martin confident women can end a seven-year wait for a Six Nations win if they can start well at Broadwood

Scotland Women’s captain Lisa Martin feels that her side now have the belief to go out and win a Six Nations match as they prepare to take on Wales this evening at Broadwood (kick-off 6:20pm).

The Scots have not won a match in the event since 2010, but the performance of the current crop of players against Ireland in this year’s opener earlier in the month was impressive.

They went down 22-15 in the end and took great heart from that showing.

That same weekend, Wales laboured to a 20-8 away win in Italy while both sides lost heavily last time out, Scotland 55-0 in France and the Welsh 63-0 at home to England.

Centre Martin said: “Everyone was really buzzing to get back into camp this week after a few days off.

“We have trained well and it is about finding the extra edge to take into games that could see us over the line to a win.

“Ireland was a massive game for us, on the face of it we lost

0 Scotland Women’s captain Lisa Martin says the narrow defeat by Ireland has given her team belief that they can win at Broadwood. that we think can trouble the Welsh.

“They have some good players,butweareathomeandlike the Irish match we have to get off to a good start and really build from there.”

Jemma Forsyth comes into the Scotland starting XV in the back-row in the only change from the France match.

Karen Dunbar is injured and will miss the rest of the championship.

For Wales, Team GB Olympic sevens squad member Jasmine Joyce and scrum-half Rhiannon Parker come in for debuts.

Joyce is on the wing and in Wales’ recent uncapped game against Spain she scored two tries from the bench.

Wales head coach Rowland Phillips said: “The girls who have come in have made a big impression in training and they deserve their chance.” Pete Mccallum says that he did not expect to be playing in the Scotland Club XV this year, let alone be asked to captain the team in their one and only match of this season against England Counties at Birmingham Moseley this evening (kick-off 7:45pm).

The 24-year-old missed six weeks at the start of the campaign with a knee injury and, given that he plays in perhaps the most competitive position in the BT Premiership, the amiable No 8 thought his chance had gone.

Buthewaspleasantlysurprised to receive a phone call from head coach Phil Smith a few days after the initial training squad had been announced at the end of November.

“He asked me to be captain – obviously I jumped at the opportunity,” said Mccallum.

“I hadn’t played a lot of recent rugby at that point because I’d been injured. To be honest, I had put the whole thing to the back of my mind this season. I’d kind of written it off and was concentrating on getting back to my best at Ayr, which is really competitive in its own right.

“There are a lot of very good No 8s in the Premiership, so it is a great honour to be in the team.” Mccallum made his Club XV debut in the corresponding fixture last year when the Scots ran out 57-27 winners at Netherdale, was involved again in the 19-13 victory over Ireland three weeks later and is confident of making it three wins out of three tonight.

He said: “We’ve spoken a bit about how they play but so much of it is about how we want to play, and if we get that right then we’ll come out of it quite well.”