Read the update ahead of Trailfinders Women’s first PWR match against Exeter Chiefs 

Ahead of Round One, Head Coach Barney Maddison and Scotland captain Rachel Malcolm spoke in the PWR pre-match press conference.

On whether there have been major changes to tactics ahead of this season, Maddison said: 

“No, not necessarily. Obviously, we play a brand of rugby where we like to throw the ball around. That’s not going to change.

“There’s obviously elements of our defence that needed to be tweaked based off the past two seasons. We’ve put a little bit more of a focus on that. Probably more so in preseason. But again, no, nothing’s changes as such.”

On being asked about the new signings for this season and how Trailfinders went about recruitment, Maddison said: 

“Again, they [Megan Jones and Francesca McGhie] came down and I think a big persuasion tactic we look to use here as such is we get them down to the ground, we get them to have a look around and the facilities here at the minute are fantastic. And again, it’s kind of where we see women’s rugby’s going in that kind of professional setup. So again, that helps.

“From a coaching point of view, myself, Stephen Shingler, Kim Oliver, all of us spoke with them and yeah, that’s how we moved forward from there.

“The Canadian and New Zealand internationals bring a lot. The way that the Canadians are in the world at the minute, they’re going to to keep kicking on as such. We’ve got a pretty strong Canadian connection here. So they spoke with a few of the girls who have been here previously and the ones that are still here as well.

“The Black Ferns are two fantastic players. And again with where the game is over in New Zealand at the minute, they’re just desperate to play rugby and we kind of gave them that opportunity.”

After moving from Loughborough Lightening to Trailfinders ahead of the 2025/26, Rachel Malcolm was asked what it was that motivated the move to West London. She said: 

“For me, at the point in my career, it was a case of trying to find an environment which I felt like I could, one, add value to, but two, align with my values as a player. And also three, the move gave me that energy to keep going at the latter stages of my career.

“What I saw at Trailfinders was a real family environment and a club which valued their players. They’ve got a really good social aspect off the pitch, which is important to me, but also they play a really exciting brand of rugby and a really attacking style of rugby. And that’s an area of my game I want to work on.

“So it was kind of an obvious choice for me to join this club because in terms of where I want to take my rugby, I think they can keep pushing me on. It’s definitely added a little bit of energy. I’ve absolutely loved coming into the group. The values of the players, the coaches and everyone involved definitely align with mine.”

On being asked about the other international players in the squad and if she’s looking forward to playing with the wider squad, Malcolm said:

“I obviously know the Scots who have signed here. We tend to travel in packs as Scots. We like to play with our own. So I obviously know a fair bit about those girls and I think, you know, the likes of Francesca McGhie, Lisa Thompson and Emma Wassell also are probably three of the strongest Scottish players and three of the players I like playing with the most. I’m definitely very excited to play alongside them.

“Julia Schell is obviously someone I know well but haven’t necessarily played alongside. I have played against her and I’m definitely looking forward to having her on my side.

“Barney touched on it, at Trailfinders we play a very attacking brand of rugby. And I think to play alongside the likes of Jules [Julia Schell], Claire Gallagher, Meg Jones, all these players who I think will kind of set our attack on fire and give me the opportunity to drive my attacking game forward as well is something I’m excited about.

“I’ve always been a traditionally defence-focussed player, so I hope I can drive that side of the game while they pull me up on in the attack side of it. But like from 1 to 15, 1 to 23 and beyond that, I think it’s just full of players who I’m definitely excited to play alongside.”

When asked about what Trailfinders might expect from Exeter in Round One of the PWR, Maddison said: 

“Well, I’d probably say different to what it has been for the past couple years. Obviously they’ve had a change at helm. We’ve probably seen more so in the Cup as well.

“Their brand of rugby has change slightly. They do throw it around a fair bit. They’ve obviously got Oli Bishop who was our defence coach here last year, running the attack down there and there’s a lot of stuff that looks pretty similar as such. With the kind of the squad they’ve got and the players have gone out and got this year. It’ll be be slightly different to what it was last year but again it always kind of have that traditional strong set piece forward kind of game as well.

“I think the big thing for us is we need to focus on ourselves. We’ve had a fair few new signings. So it’s about trying to make this team, this squad gel together as quickly as we can in a very short period of time.

“It’s been a pretty difficult six to eight weeks probably for a lot of teams in the PWR just trying to get these girls back from the World Cup, drip feed them back into training, getting them up to speed with the other players, patterns, shapes etc so that’s probably going to be the most challenging thing moving forward and for most PWR teams I think.”