Dalgliesh focuses on positives despite Scotland defeat in Six Nations Summer Series

Scotland women’s U20s head coach Louise Dalgliesh revealed there are lots of positives to take despite her side falling to 31-17 loss against England in their 2025 Six Nations Women’s Summer Series opener.

England ran in five tries at the Centre for Sporting Excellence in Ystrad Mynach, Caerphilly to secure the win but Scotland battled valiantly for 80 minutes, continually refusing to let their opponents get away from them in the scoring, as Holly McIntyre, Emily Norval and Poppy Mellanby all crossed over.

And when reflecting on the result, Dalgliesh was pleased with how her players connected with one another and adapted during the game.

“I thought the clarity that we played with in terms of our intentions to move the ball and cause England problems was really impressive,” she said.

“We have worked really hard on our connection [between players] on both sides of the ball.

“I’m just really proud of the connection, how the players worked on the field to identify what was happening and then adapt to the different pictures that they were seeing.”

Scotland’s opening try came from McIntyre’s superb score after Lucy Macrae’s pinpoint cross-field kick and Dalgliesh was thrilled with the all-round team move that led to the score.

“I'm delighted for her [Holly] and the forwards gave us a brilliant platform to allow that kick to take place.

“Holly's finish was outstanding and I'm delighted for her.”

Next up for Scotland is a clash against Wales, who also lost their opening match of the competition, going down 27-10 to Ireland.

And although Dalgliesh said the team would review Wales’ opening game, she insisted the most important thing would be to concentrate on their own game heading into the encounter.

“I think it's important that we still focus on ourselves,” she continued.

“We will take the opportunity to have a look at [Wales’] game to see which areas we can go after.

“But we've showed that we can score some quality tries and we can take confidence from that to take into our next match on Friday.”

Discover the future of international rugby at the 2025 Women’s Summer Series – where rising stars shine. Follow the action live at sixnationsrugby.com/u6n and on Instagram @u20sixnations.