By Hannah Blackwell
Wales captain Siwan Lillicrap has told her team they need to sharpen up from the starting gun if they are to sustain their superb start to the TikTok Women’s Six Nations.
Lillicrap’s side came from behind for the second consecutive match to secure a 24-19 victory against Scotland at Cardiff Arms Park.
The result – following their opening comeback victory in Ireland – means Wales are celebrating back-to-back Six Nations wins for the first time since 2015, while Scotland’s wait for victory in Cardiff, which goes back to 2004, continues.
The bonus point win also put Wales into second place behind France in the points table.
Wales now face favourites England at Kingsholm on Saturday, before hosting France on April 22.
“Spirits are high but my message to the girls at the end was, ‘we can’t keep on doing this – we can’t wait until the last 10 minutes!” said Lillicrap.
“Although it’s great entertaining rugby and everyone’s on the edge of their seats, we’ve got to maybe start a little bit better.
After round 2 last year, Wales were yet to score a point in the Six Nations. This year, they have two huge wins under their belt.
The power of giving a shit about women’s rugby.
— Will Owen (@will_owen9) April 2, 2022
“We put pressure on ourselves and probably felt the pressure. I think a similar story to Dublin really – we didn’t have much territory or possession in the first half.
“But then in the second half we had a lot of it and set piece was outstanding once again.
“We believe as a squad we’re a good outfit, we can play well and we can execute and again we did that today.
“We’ll take confidence from it but there’s a lot of stuff we need to learn from.”
Wales turned things around from 19-7 down to beat Scotland, courtesy of a Ffion Lewis try with five minutes to go in Cardiff.
Tries from Lana Skeldon and Rhona Lloyd (two) had Scotland well set at 19-7 and facing 14 players early in the second half after Kerin Lake’s yellow card, and they should have been further ahead.
Sioned Harries and Kelsey Jones tries for Wales levelled the contest, however, with the second try coming just after Scotland’s Leah Bartlett was sin-binned.
Resurgent Wales Women make it two from two – Welsh Rugby Union https://t.co/PySabbWXRC
— Ruck On (@ruckmeslowly) April 3, 2022
With five minutes left Lewis then struck for the hosts, and though Scotland hammered at the Wales try-line in the closing stages they could not break through to suffer a frustrating loss.
Scotland skipper Rachel Malcolm said: “I am proud of parts of the performance, but we had opportunities that we didn’t take and as a squad we know that is not good enough.
“We had the pressure, we had the opportunities and we needed to make more of them.
“Wales really made the most of their opportunities, every time they got one they scored.
“We had a tough talk with ourselves as a group after the game and it is not a place we want to be again, this feeling is not nice.”