Gregor Townsend hits Scotland 100 but landmark Calcutta Cup win needed so he can hold on to job

None of his predecessors got close to this figure, not even the great Jim Telfer. But Townsend’s longevity is part of the problem. The Scottish rugby public is not a radical constituency but there is a mood for change.

Boos were heard at Murrayfield in November as Scotland disintegrated against Argentina and a similar collapse - or worse - against England doesn’t bear thinking about. It’s one thing to lose an autumn international in such circumstances, quite another when it’s the Calcutta Cup.

All this is not lost on Townsend, an avid student of the game’s history. “It's our biggest game of the season, it always has been,” he said this week. “It's even more important on the back of a defeat, a disappointing defeat.”

The coach faces an almighty job to win back the support of the fanbase amid a run of form that has seen Scotland drop from fifth to 10th in the world rankings in the last two-and-a-half years.

Last week’s loss to Italy in rain-battered Rome can be placed alongside the Argentina game in that special category of Scotland games marked “horror show”. It was the opening weekend of the Six Nations but it already feels like it will be a long, painful championship for Scotland. Unless…

No one is giving the Scots much of a chance on Saturday, certainly not the bookmakers, with the home side generally available around 10-3, with England 1-3. But such odds do Townsend a disservice in this particular fixture. Scotland have lost just two of the eight Calcutta Cup matches under his watch, at Murrayfield in 2020 and Twickenham last year, a game the visitors should have won.

His highlights include the thundering 25-13 win in Edinburgh in 2018, the never-to-be-forgotten comeback a year later which ended in a 38-38 draw, the 2021 victory which was Scotland’s first at Twickenham in 38 years, the controlled success at Murrayfield the following season, Duhan van der Merwe’s sensational late winning try at Twickenham in 2023 and the same player’s hat-trick - the first ever by a Scotland player against England - in 2024.

So England arrive in Edinburgh with recent history against them but form on their side. Their 48-7 thrashing of Wales last week was their 12th victory in a row; not bad for a side which had lost six of their previous seven.

England have a Scottish streak through them

It’s six years since England left Murrayfield with the old trophy in their kit bag but this latest iteration of the Red Rose seems more durable than most. There was a relentlessness about them as they set about Wales at Twickenham, grinding down their beleaguered opponents in a first-half which included a hat-trick from Henry Arundell.

The winger, making his first start for his country in more than two years, is a former pupil of Edinburgh’s Bonaly Primary School but there will be no divided loyalties at Murrayfield, even though both sides feature dual-qualified players.

England’s Tom Roebuck and Bevan Rodd were born in Inverness and Dunoon, respectively, while Fin Smith, Henry Pollock and Fraser Dingwall all have Scottish parents.

Ben White, the Scotland scrum-half, is a former England under-20 international and Edinburgh-born centre Huw Jones grew up in England after heading south as a toddler.

This is a game that taps into national pride more than any other but it’s important to not let emotion cloud judgment. Sione Tuipulotu, captaining Scotland for the first time in the Calcutta Cup, summed it up nicely when he said it was about “getting the right balance between desperate and clinical”.

“It's something that we need to do and the emotions are a big part of that,” said the centre. “These games, as often like derbies, you wonder why they're so close - and it's probably because the emotion is up on both sides. And we need to definitely get the emotion right.”

Scotland also need to get their kicking game right - and be able to handle England’s. George Ford possesses a prodigious boot and will launch bomb after bomb into the Scottish backfield. How Tom Jordan, Kyle Steyn, Jamie Dobie and Finn Russell deal with them could well decide the outcome.

Townsend is not averse to using the tactic himself, quoting a statistic this week that says contestable kicks favour the attacking team 70 per cent of the time. The law change which cracks down on “escorting” means that retreating players can no longer block chasers from challenging for high kicks.

It means more aerial contests, which suits Dobie and Steyn but not van der Merwe who has been dropped despite seven tries in five matches against England. The Edinburgh winger will be Scotland’s 24th man.

The hope is that the kicking won’t come at the expense of Scotland’s celebrated midfield. The Russell-Tuipulotu-Jones axis is irresistible in full flow but had its creativity blunted last week by the combination of dreadful conditions and sturdy Italian defending.

The trio needs to click on Saturday if Scotland are to upset the odds. They also need to fix their malfunctioning set-piece which they surely will. A repeat of the lineout and scrum woes that characterised the defeat in Rome would be fatal to home hopes.

“Sometimes you go out there and you almost try too hard because you're so desperate to win and you want to get this victory for your fans,” said Tuipulotu. “But there's also a part of it that we have to be really clinical. And I think that's the part that England have gotten really right lately in the way that they've been playing.

“If you look at the game last week, I think their set-piece really dominated the game and it enabled them to not only get their shots off, but to stop Wales getting off anything. And that must have been a frustrating part for the game for Wales, that they couldn't get into the game because their set-piece didn't function. And yeah, we know the responsibility on our part to get our set-piece functioning.”

Townsend needs this one. It’s not so much about bringing up his century as saving his job.

Scotland v England (Guinness Six Nations, Murrayfield, Saturday, 4.40pm)

Scotland: T Jordan; K Steyn, H Jones, S Tuipulotu (capt), J Dobie; F Russell, B White; N McBeth, G Turner, Z Fagerson, G Brown, S Cummings, J Ritchie, R Darge, J Dempsey. Replacements: D Cherry, P Schoeman, E Millar Mills, M Williamson, M Fagerson, G Horne, A Hastings, D Graham.

England: F Steward; T Roebuck, T Freeman, F Dingwall, H Arundell; G Ford, A Mitchell; E Genge, L Cowan-Dickie, J Heyes, M Itoje (capt), O Chessum, G Pepper, S Underhill, B Earl. Replacements: J George, B Rodd, T Davison, A Coles, T Curry, H Pollock, B Spencer, F Smith.

Referee: Nika Amashukeli (Georgia).