The Scotland team has had some outstanding performers. Francesca McGhie is joint-top try scorer on six and ranks second for metres gained. Evie Gallagher is the leading tackler in the tournament and her captain, Rachel Malcolm, is third.<\/p>\n
Even in defeat against the heavyweight Canadians, Scotland produced some terrific rugby, the best we’ve seen from them in years. On television, England’s 2014 World Cup-winning captain, Katy Daley-McLean, has said that Scotland are playing well in spite of their governing body and not because of it.<\/p>\n
It’s a sentiment that Martin finds hard to disagree with. The former fly-half is also critical of player management within the squad, stating that the players should be treated as people first and players second.<\/p>\n
“At the end of the day, we’re people, we’re not robots.” she says. <\/p>\n
Head coach Bryan Easson is leaving his position after the World Cup and there is still some dubiety about whether it was his decision or not.<\/p>\n
Martin said on the podcast that the Scotland players will have mixed feelings about Easson’s departure, but she’s sure that it’s the right time for him to go.<\/p>\n
“You’ve got some [players] that get on really well with him and will be quite upset,” she says. “But there’ll be some that will be like, ‘you know what, it’s actually maybe not the worst thing in the world’.<\/p>\n
“From a personal point of view, I’m quite happy that he’s moving on and I think it’s the right thing to do and it’s the right time to do it. I think it needs someone else in there that is more of a people-person.”<\/p>\n
Martin was joined by BBC rugby commentator Sara Orchard, who broke the story pre-tournament on disquiet in the Scotland camp around the contracts situation.<\/p>\n
Some World Cup players went into the competition knowing that they had no deal at the end of it and that their career as a professional athlete was effectively over.<\/p>\n
Martin and Orchard preview what should be a momentous game in Brighton, but they also turned to the bigger picture in Scottish rugby – and, in their eyes, it’s far from healthy.<\/p>\n
“When you live south of the border, everyone here is talking about the legacy of this World Cup,” Orchard says. “I’m not hearing so much of what the legacy planning is for Scotland. <\/p>\n
“I don’t know how prepared Scottish rugby is for what Scotland women look like in the next four years, because we haven’t heard anything.”<\/p>\n
Looking to Sunday, there is a sense that England, though hammering all-comers, still haven’t fully hit their stride as an attacking force at this World Cup. Pity the team that’s on the end of it when it comes.<\/p>\n
Scotland have taken a leap forward these past weeks and it’s a shot at nothing against England. Their story has to go beyond Sunday, though. <\/p>\n
How do they build on what they’ve achieved? Right now, it would appear there are few answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Scotland team has had some outstanding performers. Francesca McGhie is joint-top try scorer on six and ranks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-132406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}