Scotland move Konkel-Roberts to lock for Italy

Bryan Easson hopes Jade Konkel-Roberts' move to lock will give Scotland "an extra ball carrying option"

Scotland have made four personnel changes and two positional alterations for Saturday's Six Nations meeting with Italy.

Meryl Smith is in at inside centre with Emma Orr out with concussion, while second row Lyndsay O'Donnell drops out.

Coreen Grant replaces Liz Musgrove on the wing and Mairi McDonald takes over at scrum-half from Caity Mattinson.

Fly-half Helen Nelson wins her 50th cap and Francesca McGhee continues on the left wing, despite coming off injured in last weekend's defeat in France.

The Scots are on a losing streak of 12 successive Tests. The championship started with a bruising 58-7 loss away to champions England, while Wales won 34-22 in Edinburgh before another heavy 55-0 defeat in Paris.

"We've made a couple of changes following the game against France as there is an opportunity for us to shake it up a little bit," said head coach Bryan Easson

"One of the changes is bringing Jade Konkel-Roberts into the second row. She returned to the team last weekend and she worked incredibly hard in the 45 minutes that she played so bringing her into that position this weekend gives us an extra ball carrying option.

"It's a really exciting back division this weekend and we are looking forward to seeing what they can produce.

"Clearly we are not happy with the result last weekend and there are one or two aspects we are looking to tighten up on but the squad have worked really hard to get back into the mindset of preparing for the next match in quite a tight turnaround.

"We are aware Italy play quite like France in terms of that open, expansive attacking style of play so we've looked at a couple of areas to combat that."

Scotland: C Rollie, C Grant, L Thomson, M Smith, F McGhie, H Nelson, M McDonald; L Bartlett, L Skeldon, C Belisle, J Konkel-Roberts, L McMillan, R Malcolm (capt), R McLachlan, E Gallacher.

Replacements: J Rettie, A Young, E Clarke, E Donaldson, E Sinclair, C Mattinson, B Blacklock, L Musgrove.