Much more to come from Scots, says Clarke

Elliann Clarke, the tighthead prop who started her rugby journey with the Dunfermline Minis, believes “there is much more to come” from the Scotland squad ahead of their Guinness Women’s Six Nations match in Italy on Saturday.

With Grand Slam contenders England and France running away with the top two spots in the tournament, over the last two rounds there is going to be a real battle between Scotland, Ireland, Italy and Wales to try and claim third.

Whoever does that come April 27 will earn a WXV 1 spot for later in 2024 and will be guaranteed a place at next year’s Rugby World Cup in England, so the stakes are high.

Scotland, currently fifth, have Italy in Parma this coming weekend and then Ireland in

Belfast to play and have won one and lost two so far after the recent 46-0 loss to England.

“The England game was disappointing, but on the whole we can still be proud of what we have put out in general so far in the tournament,” 23-year-old ex-Queen Anne High School pupil Clarke said.

“The good thing is we know there is much more to come from us and the thing now is to focus on Italy and Ireland.

“We went down to Wales and won there for the first time in 20 years (20-18), so that was great and then we went toe-to-toe with France completely and it could have gone either way (before a 15-5 loss).

“England was another big step up, they are number one in the world and we just had to focus on ourselves, but we probably didn’t have our best day and we didn’t do all the things we wanted to do.

“We have plenty to build on though and we beat Italy and Ireland last year, so we can definitely look back on those and we can also analyse our opponents’ performances in this year’s tournament so far and see the things we can do to help us get good results.”

Clarke, who now plays for Bristol Bears and earned her ninth cap against England off the bench last Saturday, says the atmosphere at the 7,774 soldout Hive Stadium in Edinburgh was “fantastic”.

“The crowd was amazing, we could hear them singing the whole time and it was so loud. We have been working towards a crowd like this for a long time, so it was amazing,” she said.