Six Nations 2026: Which side of the split will Scotland face England?

It’s a massive knock, but it overstates the scale of the challenge Scotland faced when playing England in the Townsend era. Frankly, England was not doing well. They were far from the true test of Scotland’s true worth.

All those wins for Scotland – were they because the Scots were upping their game or because England were defensively disorganised, mentally weak and relatively easy prey for some brilliance in the Townsend backline?

Scotland haven’t won anything, the rules are right. England is not dripping with silverware itself. They have won six nations in that time. They finished fifth in the table more frequently than first.

France, Ireland and Wales have all won Grand Slam titles during that period in 2017 since Townsend stepped up. England, for all their resources, have not won a major tournament in a decade, and only two in the history of the Six Nations.

In the last eight countries, they have finished first once, second twice, third twice, fourth once and fifth twice. Beating England is not like climbing Mount Everest.

Perhaps it is not a question of assuming Scotland are playing above themselves, as Laws and others might argue. Maybe it was more about England not being good enough.

The fear for Scotland is that coach Steve Borthwick has now sorted that out. Twelve wins in a row, a well-coached squad in all departments, excellent leaders, a strong bench – all impressions are that the foundations are solid, and that the team is less vulnerable to the kind of chaos Scotland will want to cause on Saturday.

However, Murrayfield should be a major test of their new abilities. Tuipulotu highlighted what he called Scotland’s “desperation” ahead of the Calcutta Cup.