{"id":12514,"date":"2026-04-09T09:33:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:33:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=12514"},"modified":"2026-04-09T09:33:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:33:39","slug":"womens-six-nations-2026-scotland-are-no-longer-underdogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=12514","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Six Nations 2026: ‘Scotland are no longer underdogs’"},"content":{"rendered":"


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At the start of a new World Cup cycle and with a new coaching team in place, there’s a sense of a new page being turned in this Scotland set-up.<\/p>\n

Bryan Easson departed after five years following that quarter-final exit to England, with former United States head coach Sione Fukofuka taking over.<\/p>\n

Captain Rachel Malcolm says Scotland want to get to the stage of “fighting in that top four, top five in the world”, but warns with a new coach and a host of new players, the team may have to endure a step back to take a few forward.<\/p>\n

Thankfully the build-up to this Six Nations has been less stressful than prior to the World Cup, when the squad was angered by a perceived lack of respect over contracts that left several players facing unemployment after the tournament.<\/p>\n

Malcolm was in the thick of it as captain and spokesman, in negotiations with the Scottish Rugby hierarchy and in outlining the players’ position to the media. <\/p>\n

Clearly not all the scars have healed – especially for those players left without a contract – but the mood music sounds a lot better than it did a few months ago.<\/p>\n

“There is no-one in a position right now as stressful as those girls were put in, which is exactly what I want as a captain. I really want our focus and our energy to be going into the rugby,” Malcolm told the BBC’s Scotland Rugby Podcast.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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At the start of a new World Cup cycle and with a new coaching team in place, there’s a sense of a new page being turned in this Scotland set-up. Bryan Easson departed after five years following that quarter-final exit to England, with former United States head coach Sione Fukofuka taking over. Captain Rachel Malcolm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}