SCOTLAND hooker Lana Skeldon accepts that substantial progress has been made in funding women’s rugby over recent years, but believes the ultimate aim has to be to make the sport fully professional.

The 28-year-old from Hawick won her 50th cap in the TikTok Six Nations defeat by Wales last weekend, and is expected to make her 51st appearance on Sunday, when Scotland play France at Scotstoun. Although she has seen a lot of positive changes since making her debut 11 years ago, she is convinced that a lot more needs to be done.

“Things have come a very long way from 2011 until now,” Skeldon said. “I remember the early days when we had to hand back our kit at the end of the season, but now we have a lot of support, there are full-time staff working with us, and the size of the squad and the culture is all getting better all the time.

“There is scope for massive things to come. Hopefully the women’s game will become fully professional in the next . . . . I don’t want to put a timescale on it, maybe the next 10 years, who knows? Hopefully I’ll still be kicking about for it.”

Skeldon and her team-mates in the national squad are not full-time professionals at present, but have individual contracts with Scottish Rugby as well as, in most cases, receiving support from their clubs. “I think we are a professional outfit in the way that we behave,” she insisted. “Women’s rugby is very different from men’s rugby and these things take time. 

“Now it would be great to have it [professionalism] right now, but being realistic these things take time to build into. We have made massive strides in the last five years, so we are building towards it. I think for the future it is where we want to be, but it'll take time to get there.”