All or nothing for Rollie and Scotland

By Harry Scott-Munro
24/9/21

Chloe Rollie knows it's 'all or nothing' for her and her Scotland team-mates in their quest to qualify for the Women's Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.

Off the back of last weekend's narrow victory over Spain, the newly-signed Exeter Chiefs full-back will line-up for Sunday's final qualifier against Ireland in Parma.

Having comprehensively lost their first match of the qualifier against Italy, Scotland produced a backs-to-the-wall performance last Sunday to edge to a narrow 27-22 victory over Spain, a victory that left them still in the hunt for qualification.

Ireland’s victory over Italy on the same game-day meant that qualification has been blown wide open with all four teams knowing that a victory will guarantee them a play-off spot at the very least.

Having failed to qualify for both the 2014 and 2017 World Cups, Scotland are hoping to make it third time lucky against an Irish side that have appeared at every World Cup except the inaugural 1991 tournament.

Head Coach Bryan Easson, himself a former Chief, has named an unchanged starting XV for the match, with the only change to the match-day squad seeing second-row Sarah Bonnar return amongst the replacements.

Speaking ahead of the match, Scotland centre Lisa Thomson was in a bullish mood about her side’s chances.

“We know that we can beat them, and we did that three years ago, and games since have been close,” she said. “It's always a good competition against Ireland, so we'll look to get that win on Saturday. We're going to win that game and then whatever happens in the other game is what it is, we're going to win that game first.”

SCOTLAND WOMEN'S TEAM TO FACE IRELAND WOMEN:

15. Chloe Rollie
14. Rhona Lloyd
13. Hannah Smith
12. Lisa Thomson
11. Megan Gaffney
10. Helen Nelson
9. Jenny Maxwell
1. Leah Bartlett
2. Lana Skeldon
3. Christine Belislz
4. Emma Wassell
5. Louise McMillan
6. Rachel Malcolm (capt)
7. Rachel McLachlan
8. Jade Konkel

16. Molly Wright
17. Lisa Cockburn
18. Katie Dougan
19. Sarah Bonar
20. Evie Gallagher
21. Mairi McDonald
22. Sarah Law
23. Abi Evans