Women’s rugby in Scotland is gearing up for a momentous season with new recruits taking up the game at both adult and youth level.

Chief among them is Donna Kennedy, the world’s most capped women's player, who will make the transition from player to coach in her new role heading up the Scottish Women’s Rugby Union Academy team, a stepping stone to develop Scotland's players of the future.

Scotland Women will face Canada at Hughenden in Glasgow on Sunday 4 November. Later in the season they will play two home games in their Six Nations Championship versus France and England at Meggetland.

The Canada match takes place against a backdrop of improved support structures in the women’s game in Scotland and a dramatic increase in playing numbers.

“At this time last year we had some 450 adult women players. Now that number is an audited 673 and given that it’s just the start of our season I expect the number to rise further," said Jo Wells, the SWRU Rugby Manager.

“Despite some fantastic commitment from so many in the women’s game, we’d seen a club fold in three of the last four years. Contrast that to this year where, in fact, we’ve even got a new club, Strathaven," she continued.

And the adult game is being mirrored at school level. Last year there were only five schools in Scotland affiliated to the SWRU. This year the number has risen to 45.

The Scotland Women’s side will be coached again this season by Lee Adamson, the former Saracens and Barbarians forward. Donna Kennedy, though, has wasted no time in joining the coaching ranks after she called an end to her playing career with a century of appearances for Scotland Women. Only six months after her final international, captaining Scotland against France in Paris, she has been appointed the SWRU Academy’s coach.

“I got so much out of the game over the 14 years I have been playing, 13 of them at international level, that I really wanted to give something back," she said.

“I’m still playing club rugby for RHC and the transition from player to coach is quite a challenge but if I can get half as much of the enjoyment from the coaching side and see the players at the Academy level getting ready to step up and enter the elite women’s game, then I’ll be very happy.”