Rachel McLachlan believes pushing herself outside her comfort zone by playing her club rugby in France this season can help her game develop as she looks to be a key player for Scotland heading towards the 2025 Rugby World Cup.
Still just 25, back-rower McLachlan has 43 Scotland caps to her name and, after three seasons in the English top flight with Sale Sharks, she has recently swapped Manchester for Montpellier.
Montpellier are in the Élite 1 Féminine league in France and after title wins in 2017, 2018 and 2019 they are looking to get back to those levels in a highly competitive competition going forward. Stade Bordelais won the most recent title.
“ I just wanted to try something new, a different brand of rugby,” energetic openside McLachlan, who is originally from Edinburgh, said when asked about her recent transfer.
“I want to try and develop myself as a rugby player in a different way and I thought their style of rugby would help me with that.
“I also wanted to live in another country, learn another language - all those just excite me so when the opportunity presented itself I was very keen to take it.
“I just thought ‘I’ve got to take this, it’s such a great opportunity’ and now I’ve been over a couple of times I absolutely love it and the girls in the squad are great so it’s definitely the right decision for me.
“I’d always had it in my head that at some point I would like to venture abroad and this is a great opportunity and I want to take it with both hands.
“Their attack i[in France] is incredible in terms of the way that they get offloads away and the way that they create space. The physicality of the game is also massive. There are differences to what I have been used to [down in England], but that is a good challenge and can help me grow my game.
“The young girls coming through these days in rugby these days are just incredible, they can go straight up to senior level and they know what they’re doing and that especially seems to be the case in France.
“The French are absolutely dominating aspects of the women’s game, for example in the under-20s, so I’m excited to be heading into an environment where I can play with and against these great young players and the more experienced ones [France are fourth in the world rankings with Scotland sixth].”
Read more:
- Scotland has too small a player base to waste any player
- Scots ref Hollie Davidson to make history in South Africa vs Portugal
With a busy international schedule between now and next year’s World Cup in England in August and September, it is not clear how much club rugby McLachlan will be playing in the coming months as she may often be back here for Scotland camps, but whatever exposure to French rugby she gets will help her.
That is certainly the view of Scotland head coach Bryan Easson who said: “Rachel always wants to give things a go and she pushes the envelope the whole time.
“I love Rachel’s attitude to life and also to her rugby. She wants to get better all the time.
“She always wants to improve, so the move from Sale to Montpellier was about her saying ‘I really want to improve my game’.
“She knows how good she is over ball and in the tight exchanges, but in France there will be a bit more of her playing with ball in hand, we look to try and get her on the edge at times as well and I think it is an exciting move for her.”
Before she heads over to France permanently McLachlan is focused on the small matter of trying to win her starting number seven shirt back for Scotland.
The former judo player was a fairly regular starter from her debut in Italy in 2018 - just a year or so after she took up the sport at Glasgow Caledonian University and with club side West of Scotland - until the WXV 2 title win at the end of last year.
An ankle niggle saw her miss the opening two Guinness Women’s Six Nations games earlier this year and then she had to make do with three appearances off the bench when she returned because young number seven Alex Stewart had done well in her absence.
McLachlan was not involved in the 40-14 win over Wales last Friday, but looks set to start on Saturday at Hive Stadium versus Fiji in the second Vodafone Series match before the squad fly out to South Africa next week for their WXV 2 title defence.
“We have such amazing depth at the minute, we can put different teams out for different games and I think it’s a one-game-at-a-time mentality,” McLachlan stated.
“I’m excited for this weekend and hopefully if I get my chance and I can go well as I love playing for Scotland.”
The Scotland matchday 23 for Fiji, with a number of changes expected from the Wales clash, will be named on Thursday.
