BRYAN EASSON has kept faith in the side which came up well short against Italy in the opening match of Scotland’s World Cup qualifying campaign on Monday, having made only one enforced change to the starting fifteen ahead of this evening’s do-or-die clash against Spain at the Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi in Parma.
Sarah Bonar has dropped out of the side due to work commitments with the RAF, which means Louise McMillan shifts forward from the back to the middle row of the scrum, and Rachel McLachlan is promoted from the bench to start at open-side flanker.
“Louise played in the second-row during the Six Nations anyway, so we've no real concerns with that,” said Easson. "It is an enforced change, but we knew it was coming and we are dealing with players we have worked with for a while now, so it has been pretty smooth."
Bonar will return in time to play in the final qualifying match against Ireland next Saturday, but that will be a dead rubber as far as Scotland are concerned if they don’t get a result in this game.
"We're aware that this is a cup final for us and the girls have been very good on and off the field this week,” continued Easson. "With a six-day turnaround, we have done a couple of short training sessions and then been very honest with each other in how we've reviewed the Ireland match.
“We're aware that from 19 minutes and 30 seconds to 27 minutes we compounded errors. We had two line-out overthrows, kicked straight out from the restart, two defensive errors, so from 7-3 down but inside their 22 and pressing we went to 19-3 in the space of six minutes.
“We know we can fix things and because of the players we have we decided: let's go again and give the girls a chance to put things right."
Spain set the cat amongst the pigeons with a surprise win over Ireland in their opening game, but Scotland will draw confidence from having won 12-36 the last time these two sides met back in January 2020.
"They play a very physical kind of one-out game,” said Easson. “Their nine is a very influential player for them. Their set-piece is good, they scrummed well against the Irish, especially in the first half, and their line-out maul was positive with them being unlucky not to get a penalty-try just before the try they did score.
"We played them 18 months ago and we've not played an awful lot since, so it is important to look at that. It is the same sort of side, they have the sevens players from that game involved again this week, so we know what to expect and how we broke them down last time.”
Scotland (v Spain at the Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi, Parma, Sunday 5pm British time): C Rollie; R Lloyd, H Smith, L Thomson, M Gaffney; H Nelson, J Maxwell; L Bartlett, L Skeldon, C Belisle, E Wassell, L McMillan, R McLachlan, R Malcolm (captain), J Konkel. Substitutes: M Wright, L Cockburn, K Dougan, S Cattigan, E Gallagher, M McDonald, S Law, A Evans.
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