Head coach Bryan Easson was delighted Scotland lived up to their vow to be “ruthless” as they started their Women’s World Cup campaign with a 38-8 win over Wales.
This curtain-raiser between the home nations was billed as a must-win for both sides because Canada, ranked second in the world behind tournament hosts England, are overwhelming favourites to top Pool B.
And Scotland ran in six tries, with Francesca McGhie stealing the show in Salford with a hat-trick, to seal a bonus-point win that significantly boosts their prospects of reaching the quarter-finals.
“We understood the magnitude of this game and concentrated really hard on this one,” Easson said. “We got it just right. There was energy all the way through to the end of the game.
“When we stuck to plan, I thought we made Wales look pretty ordinary. ‘Ruthless’ was our word for the week.
“We knew that if we kept the ball and got into their red zone, we would win. First half, we probably overplayed a bit, but I thought we got that perfectly right in the second half.”
Scotland could all-but book their spot in the knockout stages by beating Fiji next Saturday at the Salford Community Stadium but captain Rachel Malcolm is taking nothing for granted.
“I’m so excited going into next week,” Malcolm said. “We’ve got two more massive jobs to do and that gives us an enormous amount of energy going into that.
“Fiji are a crazy team. They’re so difficult to defend, so this week the emphasis has to be around expecting the unexpected when they attack. But we’re going to enjoy this one first.”
McGhie needed just 55 seconds to open the scoring as Wales were caught cold from kick-off and the wing touched down again after Leia Brebner-Holden’s try as Scotland established a 17-8 lead at half-time.
Wales were again sluggish out the traps after the restart, leading to McGhie dotting down for her third, while Evie Gallagher and Emma Orr also scored tries in Scotland’s comprehensive victory.
“Very disappointed,” Wales head coach Sean Lynn said. “Full credit to Scotland, they just bullied us off the park, at the breakdown especially.
“I said to the girls, we can’t keep saying we’re going to be a hard team to beat because that ain’t good enough. We showed some good moments but our physicality and some skill accuracy wasn’t there.”
Wales will seek to reignite their campaign when they take on Canada and Lynn added: “We will need to be a lot, lot better.”
