Scotland captain hails her team after ‘ phenomenal’ victory
SCOTLAND captain Rachel Malcolm is delighted that the squad “achieved quite a lot of cool records for our country” with the Guinness Women’s Six Nations win in Wales on Saturday and she says that her charges are “pretty special people”.
In the most dramatic fashion, Scotland have now won seven Tests in a row in all competitions for the first time after the pulsating 20- 18 triumph at Cardiff Arms Park in front of a crowd of 5,965.
It was also their first away win in the competition since 2018 and just their second since 2007. Indeed, they had not won in Wales since 2004.
“It feels pretty special just because of the journey we’ve been on,” Malcolm said.
“Wales has always been a battle. We were on the right end of the scoreline, and that is probably a result of focusing on ourselves and not getting too caught up in the emotion of this fixture.
“We never stopped believing in the game plan even when it felt like we were running at a brick wall at times.
“It feels phenomenal to get this win. We’ve achieved quite a lot of cool records for our country here and this is a team filled with pretty special people.”
Having led 10- 6 at the interval, a penalty from stand- off Helen Nelson made it 20- 13 to Scotland with seven minutes to go.
Wales then pushed for the seven points they needed for a draw and Scotland back- row Alex Stewart, who had been excellent on debut aged 19, was yellow carded with two minutes left.
After a TMO check, Wales were awarded a try from back- row Alex Callender in the 79th minute, but with regular kicker scrum- half Keira Bevan off the pitch, stand- off Lleucu George could not convert and Scotland held on for the famous win.
Asked if she felt under pressure late on in the game as Wales fought back, back- row Malcolm said: “To be honest, no. I think those days are done for us.
“Even if they had got the conversion I thought we would have another opportunity. I never stopped believing.
“It was a brilliant advert for women’s rugby and probably the depth of our squad is making a difference now. In every single position we’ve got people that can come on and finish the job. That means the standard of training allows us to emulate the situations like at the end of the game.”
Head coach Bryan Easson was also pleased.
“Before this game we weren’t really looking back or indeed past this week, we had a really good week when we focused on ourselves,” he said.
“There is a really special group and the last six games before this one showed what we were all about. In the morning before the game we were really calm and we didn’t get caught up in the game or the emotion.
“The players were phenomenal around how they trusted the system, stuck to the game plan and just kept on going.
“I didn’t feel in any trouble during the game, I felt in control for most of it and we knew at half time we had more in us and we wanted to squeeze more out of the game. We did squeeze everything out of it and that win was deserved.”
Next up, Scotland return home to take on world No. 3 side France at Hive Stadium on Saturday.
France opened up their campaign with a 38- 17 bonus point win over Ireland in Le Mans.