However eye-catching a record may be, it can creep up on you, and Scotland’s rugby dominance over England feels like one of those (although not if you live anywhere north of Hadrian’s Wall).
From the days when the Scots went home empty-handed at Twickenham every two years since 1983, they have now held the Calcutta Cup since 2021, with Scotland winning the last four meetings (a run not seen since Victorian times), and nabbing five wins and a draw in the seven matches since 2018.
It has been quite the collapse by England in this fixture, but with Maro Itoje’s men having edged out France 26-25 at Twickenham two weeks ago, while Scotland losing at home to Ireland to dent their hopes of a first Six Nations title, there is a mix of renewed English optimism and possible chinks in the Scottish psyche going into Saturday’s game.
A tough result to predict, but here is what England need to do to break the hoodoo:
The much-loved Scotland fly-half, who is an odds-on pick for this summer’s Lions team, was bashed off the field two weeks ago, with a purple lump on the side of his head after an accidental clash with wing Darcy Graham that contributed to Scotland’s 32-18 defeat by the Irish.
Russell has not trained fully since then, but he is available, unlike Graham.
It was Russell’s long pass to Huw Jones over the head of England centre Jonathan Joseph, leading to a fabulous try for Sean Maitland in 2018, that helped kick-start the Scottish revival and boost their No 10’s reputation for quality in tight corners.
Russell’s Bath teammate Ollie Lawrence in England’s midfield knows all about him, but knowing and stopping are different things.
Russell is equal with Ireland’s Johnny Sexton for the most try assists against England in the Six Nations era (four), and in 2022 his kicking discombobulated Luke Cowan-Dickie into knocking the ball into touch, leading to a penalty try and Cowan-Dickie in the sin-bin which gave England line-out grief.
When Russell missed the 2020 match at Murrayfield on disciplinary grounds, England won 13-6.
There is a weakness dogging Scottish rugby, as evidenced by Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh as well as the national team, which is a lack of weapons-grade power.
They play some of the world’s best offloading rugby but tend to fade or fall off contact when faced with the relentless bulk and muscle of the likes of South Africa, Ireland and France.
The England pack is not quite the size of the aforementioned trio, and they have now lost the injured lock George Martin, with Bath flanker Ted Hil called in instead of a specialist second-rower.
Yet England have been dropping anvil-sized hints in training this week, reminding their pack of embarrassing stats like Scotland’s maul shoving them back for an average of 7.1 metres in last year’s match.
“We’ve watched the last two games we’ve played [against Scotland],” England flanker Ben Earl said on Monday.
“They’re almost unidentifiable in terms of when we’ve been at our best over the last couple of years.”
Earl is also harbouring the personal hurt from Scotland’s win at Twickenham, that taught him he “didn’t know what it takes to become a top-class international rugby player”.
There is motivation aplenty here.
The South African-born wing has been the hammer of the English, with six tries in four matches: one in 2021, none in 2022, two in 2023 and three in 2024.
The best remembered is probably the amazingly mazy effort at Twickenham two years ago, as Van der Merwe evaded five defenders including batting off No 8 Alex Dombrandt at the last knockings.
In 2021, he scored a try on the right from a Russell cross-kick.
🤩 Duhan Van Der Merwe with this beauty 😍🗳️ Vote as your winner for try of the round here ⬇️https://t.co/sNUofAhpil#GuinnessM6N pic.twitter.com/bBgJYYD6HA— Guinness Men's Six Nations (@SixNationsRugby)
And this reporter well remembers last year, and the cry of “go on Du!” from the Scotland coaches seated behind the press benches, as Van der Merwe set off on a superb 65-metre run-in as part of a hat-trick.
Tommy Freeman or whoever for England stands in the way of the 16st 10lbs, 6ft 4in colossus needs to get their timing and tackle technique spot on.
England need to put Van der Merwe’s turning circle in defence to the test, too.
Scotland’s 2018 win was based on destroying the England team then coached by Eddie Jones at the breakdown.
It had started with home flanker Ryan Wilson roughing up George Ford in the tunnel pre-match, and continued on the pitch.
In the most recent meeting, in February 2024, England made 24 handling errors and were turned over 22 times, and no Test victory is possible with those stats.
As Earl said this week: “When we attacked we were passive, we played four passes when we could have played one, we passed instead of carried, and we gave them the kind of loose, turnover ball that Finn Russell, Duhan van der Merwe and their strike runners need. It was another lesson where we started the game well and tailed off.”
England head coach Steve Borthwick has pointed out the changes up front since last year, name-checking Joe Marler, Dan Cole, Ethan Roots and Sam Underhill as not being involved this Saturday.
For Scotland, Jamie Ritchie has swapped in for flanker Matt Fagerson, maybe improving the line-out.
England opened Scotland up last year with an early try by full-back George Furbank in a single-phase move off a scrum, with dummy runs by Lawrence and Henry Slade allowing Danny Care to make ground on the shoulder of Earl, followed by a left to right sweep.
There is no Care now, but Alex Mitchell can do the same.
And Scotland are missing their injured master of a centre, Sione Tuipulotu.
With Marcus Smith continuing at full-back, Borthwick is demanding he use his attacking skills to drive the rest of the team to “continue to play bravely and be aggressive”, even if there are mistakes.
“It suits the strength of our players,” Borthwick says.
“We have now got pace on edges, we have now got distributors and ball-players.”
Those of us who have seen Smith play live in dozens of matches detected signs of stress in specialist situations against the French two weeks ago, and it is clearly a risk-reward scenario, summed up by his former Harlequins teammate – and England full-back – Mike Brown telling Planet Rugby: “Marcus will make it work because he is that good.
“But he does have some development areas as a full-back.
“The high ball, the one-on-one tackling, the distributing from the back, the back-field coverage – all that non-sexy stuff that is so important in the international game.”
Scotland full-back Blair Kinghorn had a tricky time against the Irish, not helped by the injuries in the backline, but the elegant Toulouse No 15 will surely be desperate to re-establish his Lions credentials.
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