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Scotland's Jade Konkel: 'We need to take our game to the next level'
By Gary Heatly
Jade Konkel is an experienced player in the Scotland set-up and the back-rower has been putting in the hard yards recently in a bid to take her game to “new heights” during the upcoming Guinness Women’s Six Nations.
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Konkel, the Harlequins captain who also works for the London Fire Brigade, made her international debut in February 2013 against England off the bench at Esher in the showpiece tournament.
She was just 19 then and now she is 31 with 66 caps under her belt and, having missed last year’s Six Nations through an ankle injury, she is just as excited about the competition this time around as she was all those years ago, if not more so.
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Anyone who knows Konkel, who hails from the Black Isle in the north of Scotland, knows she is meticulous and planned in everything that she does and, in the last few months as she led Quins to the PWR play-off semis during the condensed 2023/24 campaign, she has been working on a number of things in her own game.
“It was tough missing the Six Nations and some other important rugby last year through injury, but I feel like I am coming into this tournament off the back of getting game time at WXV 2 and then a really good club season,” she said.
“I have played a lot of minutes for Harlequins in the last few months and I am really happy with where my game is at, but as you know I never rest or settle and just like the Scotland team want to go to the next level in the next few weeks I want to take my own game to new heights on the international stage too.
“For me, it has been looking a lot more at how I move my body. I am a pretty high collision type player and have been throughout my career so lately I have been looking at how to find more soft shoulders out there rather than always taking contact, looking at how to shift the point of contact to be able to move the ball more and working on different running lines.
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“There has been a lot of work on the footwork and evasion elements of my game and, in terms of defence, I want to be more dominant around the collision area.
“I am a pretty dominant defender, I made 57 tackles in my last two games of the season for Harlequins, but it is about getting even better. My tackle success rate in the PWR season was around 94 per cent and it is about taking that to 95, 96 per cent and always wanting to improve. There is always more you can do.”
Konkel mentioned that Scotland want to go to the next level during the Six Nations ahead of the Rugby World Cup later in the year.
They are now seventh in the world rankings after hitting an all-time high of five in September and, in total, the Scots have won 12 of their last 16 Tests.
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Good progress has clearly been made, but they want more. There is still frustration in the camp that they missed out on third place in last year’s Six Nations after losing their final game against Ireland. They then lost the WXV 2 ‘final’ to Australia in October in Cape Town.
“We are all excited to get going in the Six Nations,” Konkel stated.
“It has been great to be back together as a Scotland squad in recent weeks because WXV 2 in South Africa seems like a lifetime ago given that we have had a condensed PWR season since then too.
“There is no rest for the wicked as they say and we know that we have had to be switched on straight away over the last few weeks to make sure that everyone is on the same page come the Wales game this weekend and I know that we will be.
“When we first got back into camp there were very much the ‘first day at school vibes’ that you get at the start of any campaign, but then that soon switched and we got our game faces on and got into the nitty gritty of working hard.
“We take a lot of confidence in the results that we have had at times in 2023 and 2024 going into a busy 2025, but now we know that we now need to take our game to the next level.
“As much as we are getting better, so are all of the other nations that we will face in this Six Nations and then later in the year in the World Cup. As a result, every day we are looking at how we can make small changes to keep getting better as individuals and as a group.
“We know we have got the bigger things right over the last couple of years, but the little things are so important to be able to lift our game up a notch and in recent weeks we have been really digging into that detail and leaving no stone unturned to become the best team that we can be.”
The Scots start their Six Nations campaign at Hive Stadium in Edinburgh versus familiar foes Wales on Saturday with the visitors playing their first Test under new head coach Sean Lynn.
“We have three home games this year against Wales, Italy and Ireland and we are definitely targeting those,” Konkel said.
“Wales up first is a big game, but I have full confidence that we have done all of the right things in recent weeks to put us in the right place for those 80 minutes on Saturday.
“They have a new head coach and things like that, but really in the build up all the focus for us has been on ourselves. You’ll hear that a lot from players in various different sports teams, but for us it is genuinely true because we want to put the best version of ourselves out there in the coming weeks.
“We are absolutely looking for a third-place finish in this Six Nations.
“The home crowd we get at the Hive is like a driving force for us, I love playing there. The stadium is condensed and it is loud and Scotland is a nation of real heart and passion and that is shown by our fans and by the team.”
And, talking of fans, Konkel has two new ones heading into this big tournament.
In November greyhounds Gloria and Ringo joined her and wife Helen in the family and she concluded: “Getting the dogs was one of the best decisions we have made, it forces me to take some downtime away from rugby and my firefighting job and just switch off and enjoy walks with them.
“I am not always the best at stopping and taking time out as my wife and teammates will tell you, but we love having them around and they are just the best.”
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I wish Scotland well. I think it will be a real scrap for third place. Wales must improve and Italy could be a surprise package. Ireland and Scotland are probably favourites at the moment but France will have to be on their game to keep them both at bay.