Thomson sees signs of progress, with more physicality in evidence despite another loss

Scotland centre Lisa Thomson is convinced her team have made significant progress this season, despite losing their first two matches in the Six Nations Championship, writes Stuart Bathgate.

Shade Munro’s side were beaten 26-3 by France at Scotstoun on Saturday night, but it was a significantly better display

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than eight days earlier, when they lost 18-17 away to Wales in a match they should have won.

“Compared to last week, definitely, we raised the bar,” Thomson said. “It took us 40 minutes to get into the game last week. This week we set the physicality bar right from the off.”

France’s speed out wide and power up front ensured that in the end the visitors went home with five points in the bag thanks to two tries late in the first half and another brace in the second. But Scotland, whose only points came from an early Sarah Law penalty, put in a far more coherent defensive effort than they had done in Colwyn Bay – as they needed to in order to restrict the damage against a French team who had defeated them 55-0 in last year’s tournament.

Thomson knows the team still has a long way to go before they can get the better of the likesoffrance,whoareranked third in the world. But, having played in both of those games against the French, she knows her squad are now equipped at least to be competitive.

“There were tiny lapses in concentration and they exploited that, as we knew they would,” said Thomson, one of Scotland’s three Lillebased professionals along with Chloe Rollie and Jade Konkel. “The big work-on this week coming into camp was our spacing and physicality in defence. It was outstanding.”

It will have to be more outstanding still a week on Friday for Scotland to have any chance of pulling off a shock against England, who beat Wales 52-0 on Saturday.

Scotland coach Shade Munro expects an even harder battle in that game at Scotstoun. But, like Thomson, he is sure his squad is steadily getting better in all aspects of the game.

“In some respects England are very similar to the French, if not bigger and more physical,” Munro said. “They’re certainly more organised and more structured, so it’s going to take an effort and a half to go against them.”