{"id":240561,"date":"2025-07-05T16:54:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T16:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/240561\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T16:54:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T16:54:18","slug":"gunderson-scotland-ready-for-battle-with-england-in-u20-summer-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/240561\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunderson: Scotland &#8216;ready for battle&#8217; with England in U20 Summer Series"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>There\u2019s always an edge when Scotland take on England and one of the Scottish U20 women\u2019s captains Merryn Gunderson has said her side is ready for the battle when they take on their Red Rose counterparts on Saturday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The two sides face off against one another in the opening round of fixtures of the 2025 Six Nations Women\u2019s Summer Series at the Centre for Sporting Excellence in Ystrad Mynach, Caerphilly.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>It is the second edition of the U20 tournament, which debuted in Italy, and after suffering three defeats out of three 12 months ago, the class of 2025 only have eyes for success in Wales this time around.<\/p>\n<p>And Gunderson, who is part of a leadership group of four and will captain her country against England, knows her team is ready for the challenge ahead.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery single one of the girls is up for the battle that we\u2019re going to be given, which will be really good,\u201d the 21-year-old back rower said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will fight for it, we\u2019re ready to go out there and show what we can do and what we\u2019re worth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gunderson plays domestically for Corstorphine Cougars\/Edinburgh Rugby, having started playing the sport aged four due to her father being a coach at Forrester Rugby Club, and explained there\u2019s a good feeling around the camp ahead of their opening clash.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re really excited, we\u2019ve had such a big build-up this year which has been really nice,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGoing from Italy last year to come to [Wales] this year, it\u2019s good vibes. We\u2019ve had really good vibes in the squad, and it\u2019s been really nice to be around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Following on from the 2024 Women\u2019s Summer Series, 14 players across the six countries went on to achieve senior honours during the 2025 Guinness Women\u2019s Six Nations, including Scotland\u2019s Molly Poolman.<\/p>\n<p>And Gunderson highlighted the importance of the competition for giving players the opportunity to standout and to use it as a springboard to break into the senior team.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a massive incentive for the girls,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a great incentive to kick-off the World Cup too; that we can play before it and show what we can do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s massively important this tournament exists and is shown on the platforms that they\u2019ve got. We can show that women\u2019s rugby is growing and going from strength to strength.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With women\u2019s rugby on an upward trajectory, the 2025 Six Nations Women\u2019s Summer Series is a big chance for stars of the future to gain vital international experience, graduate along the development pathway, while also inspiring a new generation of rugby fans.<\/p>\n<p>Julie Paterson, Chief of Rugby at Six Nations Rugby, said: \u201cThe Women\u2019s Summer Series is an essential part of the strategy and commitment of Six Nations Rugby, and the six unions and federations, to proactively support the creation and growth of opportunities in the women\u2019s game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Spread across three dates during July, Scotland will also face Wales on 11 July before rounding off their campaign against Ireland six days later.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Discover the future of international rugby at the 2025 Women\u2019s Summer Series \u2013 where rising stars shine. Follow the action live at <\/strong><a data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sixnationsrugby.com\/en\/u6n\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:sixnationsrugby.com\/u6n;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"><strong>sixnationsrugby.com\/u6n<\/strong><\/a><strong> and on Instagram <\/strong><a data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/u20sixnations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:@u20sixnations.;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"><strong>@u20sixnations.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s always an edge when Scotland take on England and one of the Scottish U20 women\u2019s captains Merryn&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,93522,4884,93524,93521,712,4209,93523,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-240561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-caerphilly-castle","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-gunderson","12":"tag-merryn-gunderson","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-six-nations","15":"tag-summer-series","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}