Munro aiming for new heights

Since we first spoke to Scotland head coach Shade Munro, he has immersed himself in the world of women’s rugby - one he admittedly knew little about when he took on the role.

The task ahead of him in this year’s Six Nations remains significant – Scotland have finished bottom the last six years in a row and failed to qualify for the World Cup last year – however closer inspection shows genuine progress.

Scotland pushed France, Wales and Italy close last year and have beefed up their competitive match programme with the World Cup qualifiers being followed by matches against English Premiership sides Lichfield and Aylesford Bulls.

“A year ago the target was to improve as a team and that hasn’t changed,” he says.

“We are still focusing on performances and if you recall this time last year, I was approaching the Six Nations with no competitive games going into it. I wanted to change that and we have – the level of competition is crucial as it gives us a chance of performing at a better level. The expectation for this Six Nations is to perform at a higher level than last year. If we can keep doing that we will start to win games.”

Reflecting on the two close losses to Spain in the Autumn which denied Scotland a place in the World Cup next summer clearly hurts, but Munro thinks it could have gone either way.

“Initially it was a real disappointment but when you looked back at it, there is a realisation that we ran them really close and could have won both games. There were positives. In terms of World rankings for example we are 13th and they are about 8th and we ran them incredibly close – the difference was probably some fitness and skills. Their passing ability was a little higher and they had 7s players who had been working fulltime building towards the Olympics and you could see that. We came out on top in a lot of aspects but we will take a lot from it.”

Munro is also heartened by the support women’s rugby is starting to build in Scotland, where games at Scotsoun and Broadwood are starting to attract good interest.

“For the Spain game at home, there was excellent support. Having it at Scotsoun helped a lot – it’s  ready made rugby ground and is transformed into a proper stadium. That transfers to Broadwood as well. The interest, the standard and the fact that it was on TV made people sit up and take notice. It came across very well for women’s rugby. The perception is very important and it was quite crucial that that game we performed and it was a good game of rugby. “

Munro is helping to oversee some structural changes in Scotland to help boost the quality of high performers and he’s been pleased to see more investment in academies and the growth of a pathway system across the board for potential test talent.

Having lost to Spain – does he see their argument for their re-inclusion in the Six Nations?

“That’s a question for the powers that be but what I can say is that I went out to watch the Europeans and there are some good teams at that level. Spain were a class above, but I was impressed with the Netherlands and Russia too. Certainty there is a good level there beneath the Six Nations.”

“As the Six Nations and the level below grows you’ll find teams like Wales, ourselves and Ireland for example playing those other European teams as opposed to each other in the lead-up I am sure, but at the end of the day I am Scottish I would hate to see us not part of the Six Nations - but I am sure if was the Spanish coach I would feel differently!”

As for aims this year, he is robust.

“We are not in it just to take part. We are in it to win games. We don’t get the girls up at 6am to train to lose all the time. We want to win games, that’s why we are here. We have our own goals but we must raise the level of our performance. If we continue to do that we will win games."

Munro also reveals that Scotland will place a renewed focus on sevens this year.

“Definitely after the Six Nations that will be a focus for us. We want to get back competing, into the Grand Prix and so on.”