Scotland women pursue Rugby World Cup goal against ‘fierce Colombians’

A place at the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in October/November is the glittering prize on offer as Bryan Easson’s side seek to end their 10-year exile from the sport’s top table.

A dramatic last-gasp victory over Ireland in September sent Scotland into this week’s final qualifying tournament and the impact of the victory has had a lasting impact on the squad.

“It really instilled a sense of belief,” said Louise McMillan, the Scotland openside flanker. “This team has always been spoken about and I’ve backed these girls. I know how good they are as rugby players and in that moment I think we proved to other people how good we are. But the job definitely isn’t finished and we’re pushing on.”

The win over Ireland followed a defeat by hosts Italy and a victory over Spain which combined to see the Scots finish second in the round-robin qualifier in Parma. That secured their place in the repechage event in Dubai where, following the withdrawal of Samoa and Hong Kong due to Covid-related issues, Scotland have gone straight through to the final to meet Colombia who beat Kazakhstan in the sole semi-final on Saturday.

Colombia are ranked 25th in the world and Scotland are ninth but McMillan insists no-one in the squad is taking anything for granted.

“One of our biggest fears is us getting complacent,” she said. “We’ve spoken about that a lot. We’re here to do a job and we’re not getting carried away. it’s going to be the biggest 80 minutes of our lives and we’ll take absolutely nothing for granted.

“You just have to treat every single game of rugby the same. We can’t put any more pressure on ourselves. Of course we know how important this game is but we absolutely back ourselves that if we play to our ability and our skills we