GLASGOW girl Rachel Malcolm believes the skills she learnt from a promising hockey career will help her as she makes her first start for Scotland Women’s rugby team in the Six Nations match against Ireland tomorrow evening.

The 25-year-old previously played international hockey up to under-21 level, but with a father who played rugby for Glasgow and two brothers who have played the sport at Scotland age-grade level it was perhaps inevitable she would switch sports at some point.

She took up rugby in the summer of 2015 with Lichfield down south and enjoyed it straight away.

And as a result father Walter, brothers James – who plays for Glasgow Warriors – and Donald and the rest of the Malcolm clan will be in the stands at Broadwood cheering her on.

Malcolm, who earned two caps off the bench against Spain in November, starts at hooker in the tournament opener and said: “If I am honest I didn’t have a lot of interest in rugby when I was younger because I was very driven with my hockey and that was my focus.

“In more recent year with James playing rugby at a high level I started to take more of an interest and then I started to play at Lichfield in the 2015/16 season.

“I went down at the start of pre-season and it is a great club. I was very lucky because the first rugby session I had I was surrounded by people with England caps while our coaching staff there is brilliant.

“I think hockey helped me when moving to rugby in a number of ways.

“I have worked quite closely with strength & conditioning coaches through my hockey career and that has stood me in good stead especially with this Scotland rugby squad because we are trying to play quite a fast game.

“Team based sports are all similar and being involved in hockey has helped me with communication, working with other people and reading the game.

“I have been working a lot on my catching and passing moving into rugby as obviously there is no stick the to help with control now, but I have been loving the new challenges and meeting new people.”

After a good first season with Lichfield, Malcolm, who works at Nottingham Trent University, was given a call-up to the Scotland training squad last summer and things have really snowballed from there.

“I began training with Scotland last June, but I would not have believed that I would have been earning my third cap and starting in a Six Nations match by now if you had told me,” she admitted.

“I have played a lot of my rugby so far in the back-row, but I like the challenge of hooker and all of the experienced players around me in the pack help out.

“Really I am just excited to get out there and give it my best shot and see where it takes us.”

From the side that lost to Spain in the second leg of the unsuccessful World Cup qualifiers nearly three months ago, Malcolm, prop Lindsey Smith and No.8 Jade Konkel have come into the starting XV.

Shade Munro’s side go into the match looking for their first win in the tournament since 2010 and centre Lisa Martin is skipper.