Jade Konkel admits she 'couldn’t have dreamt' Scotland's progress

So, as she settles into Cape Town ahead of the WXV 2 tournament, it is no surprise when Konkel says she “couldn’t have dreamt” where the national team is now.

It took number eight Konkel until 2017 to taste victory in a Six Nations match and that triumph against Wales at Broadwood was the first win for any kind for the Scots in the competition since 2010.

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The year previous, the World Rugby women’s rankings had come into being and Scotland were 13th while, around that same time, Konkel became the first-ever female professional player north of the border.

Fast forward to the present day and the Black Isle native is one of 30-plus female players contracted by Scottish Rugby, while last week’s win over Fiji was a 10th victory in 13 Tests for the team. It also moved them up to an all-time high of fifth in the world rankings.

“I couldn’t have dreamt this,” the 30-year-old Harlequins captain, who has 64 Scotland caps to her name, said.

“Back when I was beginning my Scotland career I remember getting two cotton T-shirts and was told that they were to last me an entire training camp.

“Now it’s really, really cool and we have shirts with our names on them. My shirt against Fiji was the first ever number eight shirt that I’ve got with Konkel written on the back [names started in the Six Nations earlier this year, but she was injured and then wore 21 versus Wales recently], so that’s definitely going to be a shirt that I’ll cherish for the rest of my career.

Jade Konkel said she will cherish the shirt she wore against Fiji. (Image: SNS) “It was a really special moment for me and things like that just show how much progress has been made.

“And the stat of us having won 10 of the last 13 Tests is quite surreal too, to be honest. It took me a few years to get my first Six Nations win and to get there took a lot of hard yards.

“It’s taken a long time to get here, but I love the fact now that we’ve got such good depth that these younger players coming through aren’t going to know what it’s like to lose for a few years on the bounce.

“They are coming into a winning environment and we’ve just got to keep pushing forward.

“I think we’re in a good place to keep doing that now. I think we’ve just got to keep on it. We are on this kind of positive trajectory and we need to stay on it - and I fully believe that we will.”

Jade Konkel missed the Six Nations with an ankle injury but is now back fit and in the squad for WXV (Image: SNS)

Wins four, five and six of the 10 victories that have come since last April came against South Africa, USA and Japan last year in the inaugural second tier World Rugby WXV 2 tournament in South Africa.

As a result, Scotland pipped Italy to the title on points difference to lift the trophy in the six-team event.

Just by playing at this year’s event they will rubber-stamp their place at Rugby World Cup 2025 in England next August and September and that is what everything is building towards right now.

However, defending the WXV 2 title would be a great way of going about things to keep momentum up and Scotland play Italy (September 28), Japan (October 5) and Australia (October 12). South Africa and Wales are also in the competition.

“Obviously, we’d love to win it again, but it’s a different calibre of tournament this year,” Konkel, who played in the event last time out and is now fully fit after a number of ankle injuries, explained.

Scotland will be aiming to defend their WXV 2 title in South Africa (Image: World Rugby via Getty Images) “Everyone was finding their feet last year, it was really close. There’s different opposition this year, so we’re going to take each game as it comes.

“Italy is always a tough match, and that’s up first, so we’ve got to have all focus on that before we then focus on Japan and then Australia.

"I’ve gone through a lot of my career being on the other side of the scoreboard against Italy, so we know just how good they can be, but I’d like to think the amount of work we’ve put in recently and the structures that we’ve got now can help us push forward and secure an opening win.

"Hopefully we can put in three good performances and then let those performances take care of who ends up with the title.”

Scotland’s 30-strong squad flew out to South Africa on Thursday and work will begin on Monday ahead of the first game next Saturday.