The investment in Scotland’s female rugby players with full-time contracts is beginning to show its value, according to fly-half Helen Nelson.
Nelson is one of the 28 women initially awarded a professional contract in 2022, with a further four players signed up last year.
And Nelson, a veteran of 60 caps since her debut against France in the 2016 Six Nations, believes the impact is already being shown.
She said: “We’ve had some clips shown from even last year - us attacking then clips from this year.
“When you’re in the thick of it you don’t necessarily release the progress that we’ve made, but we’re reminding ourselves that everything is better: we’re fitter, faster, stronger, the skill level is better.
“Even the youngsters coming through, the standard they’re at is crazy, how good they are, and just pushing us on to be better as well. It is a really exciting time.”
As well as the on-field improvements, she said having more time to recover has been a big factor since the team turned professional.
Nelson continued: “This pre-season we’ve talked a lot about the recovery aspects of things, and it just gives you time.
"Before you were rushing off the jobs and everyone was travelling: now we’ve got time to be able to actually get the benefits from what we’re doing in those couple of hours after training.”
She said the improvements in Scotland’s game have given the team huge confidence ahead of their new season, which begins with warm-up matches against Wales and Fiji at Hive Stadium next month.
The Loughborough Lightning fly-half added: "Everyone is pushing on and improving all the time, but we are confident. The more time you spend together, and having now been professional for a couple of years, I really do think it’s starting to show.”
She also believes the squad's youngsters, like Gloucester-Hartpury back Lucia Scott and Corstorphine Cougars’ Hannah Ramsay, are well ahead of where Nelson herself was at their age.
She continued: “It’s clear they’ve all been in a high-performance environment already - the regional training centres that we’ve got in Scotland.
“You can see they’ve been in the gym a lot, working on speed stuff, and the hand-catch and the accuracy of all of that. I would say they’re way ahead of where I remember being.”
While Nelson is quick to point out the improvements made by others, she also sees improvements in her own game.
She was described by Rachel Malcolm as “the brains behind the operation” when the captain faced the press last week.
However, Nelson said leading the team is very much a joint effort.
She said: “Rach is a charismatic and natural leader - she speaks very well - so I just pick up stuff in the background if she needs it.
“We have such a good leadership group - there's five or six of us who talk regularly and drive standards. It is very enjoyable.
And while the squad is embracing the impact of its new younger members, a familiar face has also returned after enduring a long injury absence.
Scrum-half Jenny Maxwell suffered a knee injury in the build-up to the World Cup in 2022 and hadn’t played until the start of this year.
Now Maxwell, a former Loughborough team-mate of Nelson who has recently agreed to join Leicester Tigers, is back in the international fold and competing for a spot in the final squad for WXV 2 in South Africa, which is expected to be named next week.
Nelson said her return has been a huge boost.
She said: “Watching her graft behind the scenes for that length of time, she's amazingly resilient.
“She's really not had an easy time so to see her back in, she's hit the ground running. She's been great on and off the pitch, she's such a good character."
And as the team prepare for WXV, Nelson insists retaining the trophy they won last year is not at the forefront of the players’ minds.
Instead, they are laser-focused on ensuring they are at their best for the Rugby World Cup next year.
“We actually haven't spoken about the trophy itself,” the fly-half said.
She added: “We know that if we put in the performances, that will come. It sounds cliched but if we get the next five games right, we'll put ourselves in a really good spot for the World Cup.”
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