Hannah to start for Scotland in U18 Six Nations festival opener
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Hannah Dunnett has claimed a starting berth for Scotland at the launch of the Under-18 Six Nations women's rugby festival.
The Thurso High School pupil will play scrum-half versus England in their opening match in the eight-day competition at Wellington College, near Reading, on Friday.
The 17-year-old left on Wednesday to travel to meet the rest of the squad in Edinburgh who fly south the following day.
Hannah and ex-Caithness player Morven Thomson were selected for the second successive year but the latter has had to drop out through illness.
Morven, a first-year student at Heriot-Watt University, now plays for Heriot's Blues.
Their call-ups came after they impressed for Caledonia North in the Scottish inter-district competition.
Hannah, who came through the youth ranks at Caithness, has recently been travelling to the capital to turn out for the Blues.
She is due to start a sports science course at Glasgow University after the summer.
Hannah, whose father Sinclair coaches the Caithness girls' teams, was in Wales last month with the under-18s for a training game against their Welsh counterparts.
The Six Nations festival in Berkshire will see the countries play two 35-minute fixtures on each of two days followed by a 70-minute game on the final day.
After taking on the hosts on Friday, Scotland have a short break before playing Wales.
They then face Ireland and France on Tuesday before finishing with a full-blown, 35-minutes-each-way encounter with Italy on Saturday, April 15.
Coach Dunnett said: "They'll need to be fully up for that one as England 18s are usually very decent as they are all involved with Premiership clubs."
All the games are being live-streamed by Scottish Rugby.
Festival director Julie Paterson said: "The festival offers players the opportunity to gain valuable match-day experience at international level.
"It inspires future players, coaches and officials to be the best they can be and provides every opportunity to follow in the footsteps of those performing at the elite level of the game."
