'Exciting time for Scottish women's rugby' despite Six Nations disappointment

Scotland head coach Bryan Easson believes his side is improving and is “within touching distance of a lot of the teams” around them in the rankings as the build-up to the World Cup in New Zealand in October and November begins.

On Saturday evening there was late heartbreak for the 10th in the world Scots when a stoppage time try and conversion from Ireland gave the hosts a 15-14 win in Belfast.

The result meant that Scotland lost all five of their TikTok Women’s Six Nations games and finished bottom of the table in a competition won by England.

Despite a tough March and April, Easson now wants to look at the bigger picture - and that is getting ready for Scotland’s first World Cup appearance in 12 years in five months time.

“It was a tough Six Nations, there is no getting away from that, but we did come away with three losing bonus points away from home,” he said.

“To get bonus points in Wales, Italy and Ireland shows how close we are, we are within touching distance of a lot of the teams.

“We had opportunities in all three of those games to win them so we will need to learn from that and we will go away and have time apart which is required as it has been a long two years for this group.

“We have improved, we have moved forward, there is no doubt about that, but we just have to start putting together the little things we are learning all the time to get over the final hurdle and win games regularly.

Head coach Bryan Easson was encouraged by parts of Scotland Women's Six Nations campaign despite finishing bottom of the table with five defeats. (Photo by Paul Devlin / SNS Group)

“It is an exciting time for Scottish women’s rugby, let’s not forget that.

“Two years ago, the goal was to qualify for the World Cup and we did that and that wasn’t just by beating Colombia in January, we had to beat Spain and Ireland last September and we did that.

“Now the players need some downtime because there is a Commonwealth Games sevens in July, other sevens commitments, XVs commitments and then the World Cup programme to come later this year – it is a busy, but exciting time.”