THREE months ago, Jade Konkel made history; the 22 year-old from the Black Isle became the first female in Scotland to become a full-time, professional rugby player.

It was a significant step for women’s rugby in this country and for Konkel, her first few months of being a fully-fledged professional have flown by.

“I can’t actually believe that three months have passed already, it’s gone so fast,” she says. “It’s such an exciting opportunity, though, and the past few months have been awesome – I’m absolutely loving it.

“If you’d told me when I was a kid that I’d be in this position, I’d have thought you were crazy.”

Back in June, Konkel was promoted to the third tier of the Scottish Rugby Academy meaning that she was able to give up her job in a nursing home and train full-time at Broadwood Stadium in Cumbernauld.

Elite sport is, as we all know, all about marginal gains and so for Konkel the increased recovery time that being a professional player affords her has been an absolute godsend.

“The biggest difference is that I’ve got more time to rest now and do all the little things,” the Hillhead/Jordanhill player explains.

“I do miss my work and I still pop in to see everyone. but for the last three months I’ve not been having to run from one thing to another and live out of my car, which is what I was doing before.”

Rugby is, of course, a team sport and so with no other professional women to train with, Konkel trains day in, day out with the male players.

For many, it would be an intimidating prospect but she is treated no differently from anyone else, which is exactly how she wants it. And the intensity of the sessions are exactly what is needed to improve her game.

“It’s totally fine being the only girl,” she says. “Gender is totally irrelevant – we’re all training to play rugby with the thistle on our chest so we’re all just focused on that. And especially for me, being the first female, I want to work hard to show that going professional has been a good thing for both me and for the team.”

Konkel’s family is steeped in rugby, with both her parents playing for Inverness Craig Dunain but Konkel did not begin playing seriously until later into her teens.

She was involved in a wide range of sports as a kid but it was basketball that was her primary focus.

Her reason for playing rugby so irregularly was simple; there was very little rugby for girls when she was growing up. It wasn’t until she was 17 when she went to a training squad in Edinburgh and was promptly put into the under-20 squad that she began to think that rugby might be a viable path for her.

Progress is certainly being made on the women’s side of the sport but it wasn’t always quite so positive and Konkel has had to endure her fair share of negativity as she emerged as a rugby star.

“I’ve experienced plenty of negative attitudes because I’m a female rugby player and I still get people who say to me that they didn’t realise that girls played rugby,” she says. “And when the articles came out in the press about me getting a pro contract, I read the comments below and some really weren’t very nice. But I don’t find that too hard to deal with – at the end of the day, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion and I’m following my dream.

“I think that I’ve always been a pretty strong person mentally, which has helped me. It’s a good drive too, you can use the negativity as fuel to push you on.”

Konkel does not shy away from the fact that she is a role model to young players and especially young girls and it is a duty that she has embraced wholeheartedly and without hesitation.

“It’s amazing to think that little girls look up to me and that’s a big driver for me,” she says. “I want to be a role model in everything I do – you can’t just be a professional athlete for a few hours a day, you’re an athlete for 24 hours a day, every day.

“And when you get messages from people saying that you’re a role model to them, it really makes all the hard work worth it.”

Konkel missed the opening weekend of the BT Women’s Premier League due to a shoulder injury but she is optimistic that she will be back on the pitch soon. One of her main priority for the coming months is the international season, with the Six Nations beginning in February.

Scotland has finished in sixth position for the previous six years but Konkel is confident that she and her compatriots will build on some encouraging performances in the 2016 championship.

“There is still a distance to go but women’s rugby has progressed so much both within Scotland and in other countries which has been magnificent to see,” she says.

“Things are definitely looking good for women’s rugby in Scotland – this is the start of a new era for the sport and hopefully that will start changing attitudes.”