Scotland set for winner-takes-all clash with Australia

The Scottish women’s rugby team, including Musselburgh’s Francesca McGhie, have won two out of two in South Africa as they look to retain the WXV2 title they clinched 12 months ago.

A 19-0 win over Italy last weekend was followed up by a hard-fought 19-13 triumph over Japan at Athlone Stadium on Saturday.

With Australia also having won both of their games – defeating Wales and the host nation – it means they will meet to decide a winner on Saturday.

Bryan Easson, Scotland head coach, was pleased with the win but not the showing.

He said: “It was disappointing. A good win, but not up to the standards we set ourselves.

“In any sporting environment the most important thing is to win, so that is the thing we are most pleased with, but we know we can perform better than that.

“Japan are a really difficult side to play against, they put pressure on you at the breakdown and are good in that area and they keep a hold of the ball a lot, so we defended a lot.

“When we did have the ball we probably overplayed a bit, but we dug in and we managed to grind out an important win.

“All credit to the girls, they stuck in and put their bodies on the line to help us come away with the victory.

“We are alive in the competition going into next week and that’s what we came here for, to try and win the title.”

Scotland got off to the perfect start through McGhie.

Just two minutes were on the clock when the 21-year-old slipped through the Japanese defence and ran through from about 40m out to put Scotland into an early lead.

She was then involved again as Scotland scored their second try of the day on the half time interval.

The Leicester Tigers star found Alex Stewart, who crossed the line for her first try for her country.

Easson said her workrate and movement was “improving all the time”.

He said: “We have worked a lot with Fran recently about her coming off her wing.

“For the try, she added that extra number in the middle of the pitch and that was excellent and we started the game really well.”

Scotland play Australia in the final match of the competition, which kicks off at 4pm BST.