‘Scotland don’t want to be World Cup one-hit wonders’

Scotland vs. Fiji in the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup

Salford Community Stadium Date: Saturday, August 30 Kick-off: 14:45 BST

Scotland’s task as they prepare to face Fiji is to return to the high standards they have set themselves in the wake of a flawless start to their Women’s Rugby World Cup campaign, which saw them effectively destroy Wales.

A second straight victory, according to the Scots, is likely to earn them a spot in the quarter-finals.

They have put themselves in a fantastic position, and they must last to see their performance against Wales be the most disappointing, making this team known as World Cup one-hit wonders.

“You can’t just put out a performance like that and not back it up,” said Scotland lock Emma Wassell, “I think it’s easy for other people to look and be like, oh, a wee bit of pressure off.”

Captain Rachel Malcolm has spoken this week about how the squad needed to experience an “emotional decompress” in place of simply riding the momentum from Wales to Fiji in response to the incredible six-try defeat of Wales.

You can’t just “go from cloud nine to cloud 10,” she said.

No one expected a 30-point win in matchday one, but Scotland are now a clear favorite for this one.

Fiji are 14th in the world, eight places below Scotland, who improved to sixth after defeating Wales.

The Fijians look for the taking after being defeated by Canada 65-7 in their Pool B opener, but the Scots are not going to let complacency creep into their hearts and risk wasting a tournament debut that has been promising.

There is no other choice; Malcolm remarked, “We must go and finish the job.”

“We have examined the game from the weekend, taken into account some of the opportunities that were missed, and evaluated the things that we did well.”

When you lose, it’s relatively easy to completely tear a game apart and evaluate every detail that can be improved, but it’s also very simple to think that the entire performance was made up.

“Recognize those things that we can still change and we can still get more from,” the first thing we did was to look at it.

There are numerous small adjustments in the game that, in my opinion, have missed opportunities.

“We’ve made an effort to treat it the same way we would have handled it if we had left that outcome,” said the company, “to make sure that we’re not missing anything.”