Scotland set sights on third place in Six Nations

Women's Six Nations

Scotland v Wales

Venue: Hive Stadium, Edinburgh Date: Saturday, 22 March Kick-off: 16:45 GMT

Coverage: Live on BBC Two & BBC Sport website and app

Three wins and a third place finish would represent a successful Women's Six Nations for Scotland, says captain Rachel Malcolm.

The Scots have finished fourth in the last two tournaments and have not finished as high as third since 2005.

England and France will once again be overwhelming favourites to claim the top two spots, but Malcolm believes finishing above Wales, Ireland and Italy - who all visit Edinburgh this spring - would be a big step forward.

"Yes, 100 per cent," Malcolm told the BBC's Scotland Rugby Podcast.

"I think the cop-out answer is for me to sit here and say we're looking for consistent performances, and we are.

"We obviously have a lot of fresh faces in the squad, and I think in a World Cup year it's so important that we embed them into the squad, both as players, but also into our culture and all those bits.

"So those are definitely goals of this Six Nations, but ultimately we need to continue to keep winning games. So having those three home games is a massive target for us.

"France and England are a little bit ahead of us still, but I think the performance we put out against France last year [15-5 defeat] shows that we are closing that gap, and we're really excited to go to La Rochelle next week and test ourselves against one of the best teams in the world."

Malcolm is also sure delivering a strong Six Nations, starting at home to Wales on Saturday, can help propel Scotland to a good showing at the World Cup in England later this year.

"I think as players, we'd be lying if we said it wasn't in the back of our minds," said Malcolm, who is leaving club side Loughborough Lightning after eight years to pursue a new challenge.

"That is always going to be something in a World Cup year, whether it be thinking about selection, thinking about injury, all the bits that can be kind of niggling at you.

"What we have within this group and within this squad is a group of players who are just so passionate about taking Scotland to as high a level as we possibly can. Us qualifying for the last World Cup was history in itself.

"I think what we've achieved between that World Cup and this one is pretty phenomenal in terms of world rankings hitting our highest point, record numbers of wins.

"We truly believe that we're in a position that we can get one stage further at least.

"We've definitely got a little bit of a bitter taste in our mouth when we think back to that time, because I definitely think we didn't achieve to our potential at that World Cup, and that's ultimately the aim here, but that starts now.

"We need to get the most out of this Six Nations. So as best we can, we have our heads on this tournament, but we're not shying away from the fact that we have to get a lot of things in place now to put us in the best possible position to go and perform in August."