Borderer Lana Skeldon scores 22nd try for Scotland women’s rugby team during 64-26 loss to Canada
A 22nd Scotland try for Hawick’s Lana Skeldon proved to be just a consolation effort as the national women’s team lost 64-26 at home to Canada at Edinburgh’s Hive Stadium in World Rugby’s new WXV Global Series.
Bristol Bears hooker Skeldon, 32, was one of two Borderers in interim head coach Dave Butcher’s starting line-up against the Canadians, the other being Jedburgh’s Chloe Rollie.
Skeldon played for just short of an hour before making way for Glasgow Warriors’ Aicha Sutcliffe and Edinburgh full-back Rollie, 31, was on for the full 80 minutes, taking their combined tally of caps to 175, the former now being on 88 and the latter on 87.
Scotland’s other tries besides Skeldon’s 55th-minute score were touched down by openside flanker Evie Gallagher on 16 minutes, left-winger Shona Campbell on 33 and right-winger Rhona Lloyd on 72, with fly-half Helen Nelson adding three conversions.
Canada’s try-scorers were Lizzie Gibson and Olivia Apps at the double, Brittany Kassil, Julia Omokhuale, Taylor Perry, Justine Pelletier, Gabrielle Senft and Savannah Bauder, with Claire Gallagher kicking seven conversions.
Next up for captain Rachel Malcolm’s Scots, ranked seventh in the world, after that loss to the third-rated Canadians is a visit from second-placed New Zealand this coming Saturday, with kick-off at the Hive at 5.10pm, and the Black Ferns will head this way on the back of a 28-14 win away to France at the weekend.
Butcher, 51, was disappointed to get off to a losing start in front of a crowd of 2,721 after taking over from Sione Fukofuka last month, with Tom Luke and Jedburgh’s Craig Laidlaw as assistants, but said he could see some positives to build on.
“I was obviously not happy with the scoreline but I was with the endeavour that we showed.
“We asked them to be really brave, and if you ask a team to be really brave, then you can’t penalise them when they are.
“I think our job now is to encourage that braveness but then understand how we execute it.
“I think the areas that probably disappointed us a little bit were our physicality around the breakdown and keeping the ball, but we’ll eat that and we’ll come back better.
“If we’re being really honest, we’re five weeks into a complete rebuild, and if we hadn’t shown an identity of the way we wanted to play based on how we trained, I think that would worry me. However, we have seen glimpses of it.”