England vs Scotland LIVE: Women’s Six Nations latest score and updates as Sarah Hunter bids farewell

4 mins: Holly Aitchison sends a kick downfield, which is returned by Chloe Rollie. England find Jess Breach on the wing but Scotland are able to hold her back before winning the penalty just inside their 22.

Smith’s kick is knocked on outside the England line and there will be an early try. But England’s push is too strong and they are ale to muscle Scotland back to win the penalty.

Here we go then, an end of an era for England but the start of this year’s Six Nations for the Red Roses and Scotland.

Meryl Smith will get us underway!

Sarah Hunter gets a huge cheer as the retiring England captain takes to the field for the Red Roses for the final time.

She is joined by her niece – now time for the anthems.

Scotland enter into this year’s Six Nations under different circumstances after Scottish Rugby announced last December that professional contracts had been awarded to 28 players, as part of its continued investment into the women’s game.

Easson welcomed the move but believes material benefits may take time to emerge. “Undoubtedly, professionalism makes a massive difference,” he said. “Clearly as coaches we want to see the performances grow in the field. That doesn’t happen overnight.

“For me, it has mainly been the off-field stuff. We don’t have to play on a Saturday and bring them back on a Sunday because they have to go to work on a Monday. In the last four weeks we have been able to have camps during the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and be able to rest them. They are no longer training at night after a day’s work.

“That has been the big difference – around rest and recovery – which allows us as coaches to increase intensity of training up to match intensity which in the longer term will improve performances. So that’s been the big thing.”

Scotland finished bottom of the Six Nations table last season with five defeats, while England finished top with five wins, one of which was a 57-5 win over the Scots.

Head coach Bryan Easson knows the magnitude of the task ahead but is looking for “a consistent performance” from his side. He said: “We have played England in the past and played well for 20 minutes or 25 minutes and then dropped off. For me it is having that consistent 80-minute performance.

“We will be under pressure at times because we are playing the best team in the world. So it is about consistent performances from us, staying with them for 80 minutes.

“We have lost the last nine games but six of those games have been within a score, in terms of bonus points. We want to turn those tighter games into one or two-point victories rather than two or three-point defeats.”

‘Almost like grieving’: The ‘heartbreak’ fuelling Holly Aitchison and England’s rebrand

Holly Aitchison sunk back on her haunches, the hurt of dreams stolen away etched on the face of a player suffering defeat in a Red Roses shirt for the first time. England had given New Zealand everything at Eden Park, staying in the battle after an early red card to leave them a shot at victory in the final moments.

England, as they had all tournament, went to their maul, kicking to the corner with the clock almost dead and three points in it, five metres and one more application of their inexorable rumbling mass from victory. But, for once, their lineout power play failed: A snatching Black Ferns hand reaching up between the limbs to snatch the ball, and the trophy, from England’s grasp. Aitchison could only watch on, helplessly, from out in the backline, a 30-match winning run at an end.

“I can’t put it into words other than heartbreak,” Aitchison tells The Independent while reflecting nearly five months on. “Everything that you had worked for, feeling like you were in a really good place to achieve your goals, and then everything goes wrong on the day and you don’t come away with the medal.”

You can read Harry Latham-Coyle’s full interview with Holly Aitchison, here:

Alex Matthews insists England have banished the demons of their World Cup final defeat as they chase a fifth straight Women’s Six Nations title.

The all-conquering Red Roses’ record-breaking unbeaten run of 30 matches came to a shuddering halt as they lost 34-31 to New Zealand in a final that had almost had its conclusion written before it was played.

Amidst the post-mortem of what happened on that day in Eden Park, long-term head coach Simon Middleton announced he would be stepping down at the end of the Six Nations as England continued to work out what went wrong.

Yet Matthews revealed it is not all doom and gloom in camp, as the side’s focus returns to retaining the championship they have so utterly dominated for the past few years.

“Since our review weekend, we haven’t mentioned it again,” said Matthews. “Our thing now is growing the gap to the other five teams.

“Obviously, it was heart-breaking to begin with. You spend so much time together, I think some girls felt quite lost getting back to normal life.

“I have always told myself it is just a game. I enjoy it and that’s why I play but you have to be quite sensitive with how everyone is dealing with it. You have to let everyone deal with it individually in their own way.”

Harry Latham-Coyle: Sarah Hunter’s selfless act helps define era as England’s greatest captain

It is an overcast day and Sarah Hunter is clutching only a towel in Bayonne. It is May 2022, the Red Roses are on the verge of completing a fourth successive unbeaten Women’s Six Nations campaign and their skipper can only watch on with a grimace. An untimely rib injury had ended Hunter’s tournament a week before the trip to the Basque Country – even the slightest of chuckles sent shoots of pain to her chest.

The rib injury that troubled her was a significant one, the towel about all she was permitted to lift before the time came to hoist the Six Nations trophy again. Having tried unsuccessfully to convince the medical staff to let her play on painkillers, Hunter’s attention turned to how best she could help out. While other players might have stayed at home, or flown down purely for the Saturday celebrations, come the Wednesday before the game, the England skipper was on a 6am flight from Stansted Airport to ensure she was there to support her squad in whatever way she could.

It spoke volumes about a character who has come to be a defining figure in the growth of the women’s game.

England captain Sarah Hunter will retire after the Women’s Six Nations opener against Scotland this weekend.

Hunter, who has won a world-record 140 caps for her country, has decided to call time on her rugby career after Saturday’s clash in her home city of Newcastle.

The 37-year-old back-row forward has helped England win 10 Six Nations titles and the 2014 World Cup. She was also named World Rugby Women’s Player of the Year in 2016.

She told BBC Sport: “Everything has to come to an end at some point. The RFU kindly put a Red Roses game finally at Newcastle, which is my home city where I grew up. I just couldn’t not give it a go to play in the game. I started playing rugby in Newcastle, finishing there feels like I’ve come full circle.”

Teammate Emily Scarratt paid tribute to the outgoing Hunter, labelling her “the best servant English rugby has ever had”.