Women's Rugby World Cup 2025: Sean Lynn hopeful as Wales face Scotland

Almost exactly five months on from leading Wales for the first time, head coach Sean Lynn will be hoping for a better outcome when his side face Scotland in their crunch Women’s Rugby World Cup opener.

Lynn replaced Ioan Cunningham as Wales coach earlier this year, and had just three days to prepare his team for the first game of their Six Nations campaign after leading Gloucester-Hartpury to an historic Premiership Women’s Rugby treble.

That encounter in March when he first took charge of the team was a 24-21 loss to the Scots in Edinburgh, with Wales going onto endure a winless campaign as they finished bottom of the pile for the second year running.

The preparation for this Women’s World Cup has been completely different though, with a productive tour of Australia, during which the team won for the first time under their new boss, and now good lead-in time ahead of Saturday’s encounter in Salford.

Add in the return to fitness of co-captain Alex Callender, who had been struggling with an ankle injury, and you can see why Lynn is confident his team will be much improved on their Six Nations efforts.

He explained: “I'm really looking forward to it, because my first international game was against Scotland away. I finished with my club on the Sunday and then I went in on Monday and I'm in Scotland playing against Scotland.

“I've seen the history of the competitiveness and the last World Cup it came down to the wire as well.

“We've had a real good training week the girls are positive they’re buzzing for it and just making sure we can get this performance.”

Matches between the sides have been very close in recent seasons, but Scotland have won the last three meetings.

Wales, did however, come out on top in the pool stages of the last World Cup, Keira Bevan’s last-minute penalty the difference between the sides on the day, and earning Wales qualification for the last eight at Scotland’s expense.

With heavy hitters Canada also in the group, this game will likely decide who makes it through this time around, meaning that both teams know that they will have to hit the ground running to avoid an uphill battle to get out of the groups.

And 22-year-old Scotland winger Fran McGhie admitted that the teams know each other inside out ahead of one of the most important games of the entire tournament.

She said: “They're always competitive. Wales are a physical team but we've played them enough to know what we're expecting. They're under a new coach but the Six Nations was a good place for us as well and we're just going to go out and be really competitive. It's going to be a great game.

“This is probably our most competitive game. It's exciting for it to be against Wales, it's always very close and a couple points in it, so we'll just see who comes out on top.”

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