Scottish Rugby gives two reasons to celebrate

Scottish Rugby returned to success this week with both the men’s and women’s national sides performing with confidence.

The men’s team, who had not played since March, ran out a rather convincing 48-7 winner versus Georgia in their opening game of the Autumn Nation’s Cup at home.

With Graham and Brown both scoring two tries, and additional tries coming from Watson, McInally, Van der Merwe, and Kinghorn, plus four conversions from Hastings, Scotland stamped authority from early on and made sure they collected all the points available.

The Scotland Women’s Rugby Team also fought hard and sprung from ten points behind to draw with France after two defeats back in the spring.

It may have been their best performance in years and was an excellent start for new head coach Bryan Easson. After going down 8-3 early on in the game, Scotland found themselves at the helm of a potential defeat.

France did get to the ten point deficit and many spectators would assume the game to be already lost, but the Scottish women drummed up their belief that they could still win.

Their only try was confidently finished by Stirling County’s Rachel Shankland on her debut, and the other points came from Helen Nelson, whose conversion of the Shankland score secured the try after her two earlier penalties.

The women’s team kept steady heads to come back from 8-3 and draw with France

The comeback was well and truly on and France, under the cosh of this late Scottish confidence, seemed to fold to the women in blue.

After the final whistle, the Scottish women and coach Easson were rightfully ecstatic with their performance

“I’m extremely proud of them,” Easson said. “I thought they were outstanding today. At 8-3 down at half-time we weren’t worried at all – we were putting France under pressure with some excellent ball carries. Our patience showed in the second half, and it was an outstanding try at the end from Rachel Shankland.”