Munro urges rookies to impress in Italy

Scotland Women’s head coach Shade Munro has challenged the new faces in his squad to perform well this weekend in the Test match in Italy and give him a selection headache ahead of the Six Nations.

The side take on Italy in Calvisano on Sunday (1:45pm local time) and Munro has named six uncapped players plus the returning Annabel Sergeant in his extended travelling squad of 25. That will be cut down to 23 on Saturday and with Jade Konkel, Rachel Malcolm, Debs Mccormack and Hannah Smith all injured it gives opportunities to others.

Wing/full-back Sergeant has played for Scotland before and is back after a stint in New Zealand, while the new players to look out for are back-rows Rachel Mclachlan and Lucy Winter, loosehead prop Lisa Cockburn, tighthead prop Mairi Forsyth, scrum-half Caitlin Sedgeworth and winger Bryony Nelson.

“This is a good opportunity for the new players to play at this level and we have a big home match with Canada later this month too,” Munro said.

“There are a few unavailable through injury and I want the others to show me what they are capable of as we aim to hit the ground running.

“We respect Italy. It is a Test match, not a training match and we want to impose our rugby on the Italians so it should be an entertaining game. Playing Italy away again for us is good. When you play a Test match you want to win it, you need to win.”

Scotland lost 26-12 to Italy in the Six Nations back in March.

The captain will be named tomorrow.