Scots miss out as Irish triumph

SCOTLAND skipper Rachel Malcolm was left to rue missed opportunities after they lost 15-12 to Ireland in Belfast on Saturday and missed out on a third-place finish in the Guinness Women’s Six Nations and all that comes with it as a result.

If Scotland had drawn or won the round five game at the Kingspan Stadium they would have finished third and recorded three tournament victories for the first time since 2005 and, more importantly, qualified for WXV 1 later this year and the Rugby World Cup 2025.

As it is, having finished fourth, the same as last year, they will head to South Africa in a few months to defend the WXV 2 crown they won in 2023 and still need to have their World Cup spot rubber-stamped.

In the game, the visitors led 5-0 at half-time thanks to an unconverted try by hooker Elis Martin before Ireland struck back just after the break through teenage winger Katie Corrigan.

Centre Lisa Thomson’s try, converted by stand-off Helen Nelson, then put Scotland 12-5 up.

With 22 minutes to go Ireland set up a thrilling last quarter when hooker Cliodhna Moloney crashed over for a try converted by stand-off Dannah O’brien.

With seven minutes to go O’brien kept her cool to kick what turned out to be the winning penalty and Ireland held on to win 15-12, despite a late yellow card, to spark home celebrations.

“There were opportunities to win the game and we didn’t take them,” Malcolm said.

“I think we struggled to break them down from an attack point of view. Our lineout defence gave us a platform to play off, but our lineout attack probably didn’t function as well as we would have liked.

“When we had the ball we probably didn’t threaten as much as we would like. Right now I don’t know exactly why that is.

“Defensively we put in a brilliant performance, particularly in the first 40 minutes when Ireland were really going at us in terms of those physical carries and I think we fronted up phenomenally well. But we can’t defend for that length of time and not potentially break.”

MAXIMUM EFFORT: Scotland skipper Rachel Malcolm drives into Sam Monaghan in Belfast but ended up on the losing side on a day of joy for Ireland.

Captain Malcolm wins a lineout.