Scotland aiming to silence record crowd
A record crowd for a standalone women’s rugby international in Wales will be at the Cardiff Arms Park this afternoon, but Scotland centre Lisa Thomson is determined to keep the home support quiet and secure an important win.
Off the back of Wales handing out 12 full-time and 12 retainer contracts and then beating ireland away in round one of the Tiktok Women’s Six nations last weekend they have been the team everyone has been talking about of late.
That brings its own pressures though and in the crowd that is expected to exceed over 4,200 there will be a lot of expectant Wales fans - and the Scots need to use that to their advantage.
Preparations for Scotland have not been great, eight players having been ruled out in recent days through Covid, other illness and injury after a 57-5 home loss to England.
However, they are ninth in the world to Wales’ 10th and there is still enough quality in the matchday 23 to not get carried away by all the hype around the new-look Wales and get the job done on the road.
“We know the energy that you get from a good home crowd, but we are excited to play at Cardiff Arms Park and excited to play in front of a big crowd,” Thomson, the 24- year-old winning her 42 nd cap, said.
“I think a number of Scots have made the trip down while we need to be more consistent and clinical than last week. If we are then we can cause Wales problems.
“They will be on a high, obviously, after their win against Ireland, but we are super excited for the challenge.”
In the game thomson’ s good friend Lana Skeldon will win her 50th cap at hooker while the former believes young backs Emma Orr and Shona Campbell, making their first starts, are “super confident kids”.
Meanwhile, Wales backrow Alisha Butchers said: "We believe there is more to come from us, 100 per cent we set the standard last week, the only way is up now.”
The game is at 4.45pm, live on BBC Two.