Gary Parker upbeat despite Scotland Women's defeat

Cheryl Phillips scored two tries for Canada against Scotland

Gary Parker insists Scotland's Women's Rugby World Cup can still finish on a high despite a 41-0 defeat by Canada.

Wednesday's defeat means the Scots missed out on a play-off place for fifth place and face Ireland in a play-off for seventh and eighth.

"We've only been together as a squad for eight months and are a developing side," said Scotland coach Parker.

"If we can finish seventh, it will be a big achievement for this squad and give us a platform to build on."

The Scots had already lost to the Canadians as they finished third in the opening group games.

We had to shuffle a lot of players around and it made it difficult for us Scotland Women's coach Gary Parker

And Parker's side, who face the Irish on Sunday, conceded six tries this time at Surrey Sports Park, with Heather Moyse and Cheryl Phillips both scoring two each and the others coming from Michelle Gallo and Mandy Marchak.

"We gave them two soft scores right at the start, like we did in game one, then for about 40 minutes it was pretty even," Parker, who points out that he has a number of young players coming through, told the Scottish Rugby Union website.

"In the last 20 minutes, however, we lost three or four players through knocks and injuries.

"We had a hooker playing back row and Tess (Forsberg) making her debut at open-side, we lost our stand-off and had to put Lucy (Millard) in to 10.

"We had to shuffle a lot of players around and it made it difficult for us."

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Scotland: Johnston, Green, Millard, Fitzpatrick, Douglas, Griffith, Dalgliesh, Lockhart, Macdonald, McCord, Brown, Wheeler, Reid (capt), Slaven, Kennedy.
Replacements: Walker (on for Kennedy), Dickens (on for McCord), Moffat (on for Wheeler), Holdsworth (on for Reid), Forsberg (on for Slaven), Newton (on for Griffith), Halfpenny (Melrose).

Canada: Cripps (capt), McKenzie, Jacobsen, Gibbs, Knauf, Jaques, Florence, Russell, Sugawara, Schnell, Gallo, Ulmer, Marchak, Moyse, Phillips.
Replacements: Donaldson, Donaldson, Stavrou, Kish, Stoughton, Hilditch, Waters.

Referee: Javier Mancuso (Argentina)