DESPITE having successfully trained to qualify as a firefighter earlier this year, Scotland forward Jade Konkel admits she was unprepared for the heat in Parma on Monday when her team lost 38-13 to Italy in the first match of the Rugby World Cup qualifying tournament.

“You’d think I’d have had some experience, having been in some rooms of fire, but I don’t think anything really matched up to that heat,” the 27-year-old No 8 said.

“A 32-degree match is not something I’ve experienced in my nine years of playing.

“Playing in that heat was something else - even from the first five minutes you could tell it was absolutely energy sapping. It was really tough.

“But you can’t put everything on the heat. Ultimately we didn’t play our best.”

That loss to the tournament hosts means that Scotland now almost certainly need to beat Spain on Sunday to keep alive their hopes of qualifying for next year’s finals in New Zealand.

Games between the teams have been close in recent years, but the good news from a Scottish point of view is that the game kicks off at 6pm, four hours later than the Italy match.

The Spanish beat Ireland 8-7 in their opening game, also on Monday, but Konkel is confident her side can recover from their opening-day defeat.

“It’s a must-win on Sunday,” she continued.

“It’s very much an all-or-nothing and I guess you could say that’s a bit of the Scottish fighting spirit. We like a challenge, we are the underdogs, but we play with a lot of heart, and that’s going to really come out on Sunday.

“It’s still wide open now. It’s only round one and we’ve come away with a loss in what we knew would be a really hard game.

"But with Spain beating Ireland it just goes to show that anything can happen on the day.”