Konkel to start in front row against Spain as Scotland look to Six Nations
Jade Konkel, Scotland’s most influential player and normally a No 8, will start in the front row against Spain on Sunday as national coach Shade Munro finalises his preparations for the Six Nations. It will be the third friendly international running that the Lille professional has begun at loosehead, and is the key facet of Munro’s plan to get the most dynamic line-up possible on the field.
While Konkel’s move from back row to front is the most eye-catching element of the team announced yesterday for the non-cap game at Scotstoun, there are also similar switches for Hannah Smith – from centre to 6 – and Sarah Bonar, who drops back from lock to take over from Konkel at 8. Such changes may look experimental, but all being well Munro plans to persist with them in the Championship, which begins with the away game against Wales on Friday, 2 February.
“We’ve got to be able to get as many of the best players on the pitch as possible,” Munro said yesterday after announcing his line-up. “Jade certainly has the physique and the mentality to play prop.
“This will be Jade’s third game in a row at prop, so it’s not so much of an experiment, it’s with a view to actually doing it [in the Six Nations]. We played Wales in a friendly here and she played prop, and there were aspects of her game that needed work. She needs to play again at a higher level to put those right, so it will be about how she copes with that.
“She’s still the same player; she’s still the ball-carrier that we need. She just doesn’t carry from No 8. She’s still involved in the lineouts in the role she had before. Nothing changes for her, really. I want her playing like a back-row player when she’s playing prop.”
Munro is likely to use his full bench on Sunday, which could mean Konkel ending up in the back row again. But, whatever positional changes occur during 0 Jade Konkel: Will switch from No 8 to loosehead prop. the match, the aim will be the same: for Scotland to keep up a relentless tempo designed to exhaust their opponents.
“If she was destroying the girl in the front row, and the back rows were playing well, let her get the experience in the front row,” the coach added. “I know what she can do in the back row. But I would envis- age making that move to get the other props on, rather than taking Jade off.
“We are trying to do things as fast as we possibly can. We may never play the fastest rugby in Europe, but we’re going to do everything we possibly can to do that. Physicalitywise, the size of the team we’ve got, that obviously suits, rather than playing a pick-and-go kind of game. You don’t want to play that anyway.”
Scotland’s most recent games against Spain have been close encounters, notably the two-legged World Cup play-off at the end of 2016, when Munro’s team lost by just five points at home then again in the away leg.
They recovered from that disappointment to win twice in last year’s Six Nations, and the coach expects this latest meeting to be an accurate gauge of his team’s progress since. He said: “While it’s not a full Test, it’s the competitive rugby that we need to develop a wider pool of players. We’ve beaten them a couple of times and they’ve beaten us a couple of times, but their wins were the World Cup qualifier, when they were at full strength. They’ve picked a full-strength team this time, too. They’re tenth in the world, we’re 12th, so it’s ideal preparation.”