Six Nations 2024: Can Scotland keep making magic against England?

Sean Maitland sliding into the Murrayfield corner in 2018. Sam Johnson steaming under the Twickenham posts a year later. Duhan van der Merwe’s heart-stopping score in London a year ago. The winger finishing off a flowing team move late in the same match.

Whether it is the added edge of rivalry, or the incentive to rid themselves of years of dirge and disappointment, which had maligned the Scottish experience of rugby’s oldest fixture for decades, something about playing England has brought the best from Scotland in the past six years.

Gregor Townsend said this week the spectacle of the fixture has improved markedly. He’s right – and it’s got everything to do with his side turning up to the party, often playing some phenomenal rugby.

So, as they go for a fourth win in a row against England for the first time since 1896 the question is, can Scotland still keep producing moments of magic?

Russell’s starring role

It’s hardly surprising the main factor in answering that question will be the performance of Finn Russell. Scotland’s fly-half – tongue firmly planted in his cheek – recently compared himself to Lionel Messi.

When it comes to recent Calcutta Cup clashes, the joking comparison may stand up to some scrutiny. Scotland’s co-captain has been at the heart of most good things in his team’s recent wins.

It was his sensational pass over the head of Jonathan Joseph that put Huw Jones sailing through a gap in 2018, before floating the final ball into the arms of Maitland to finish the move.

He inspired the Twickenham comeback in 2019 as Scotland stormed back from 31-0 down. And his fingerprints were all over last year’s winning score from Van der Merwe.

Russell has been in good form this season for Bath and his influence in the Six Nations has been clear. He is the joint-top points scorer and has set up two of Scotland’s four tries.

Only Wales centre Nick Tompkins has more offloads than Russell, too. But Scotland have changed tack slightly by kicking a lot more. More than any other side in the tournament, in fact.

Russell has 44 kicks from the first two games, that’s 15 more than his half-back partner Ben White. The next in the rankings is England scrum-half Alex Mitchell, who has 24.

Kicking can obviously be a good attacking tool, but the sheer amount of it in the second half against France drew criticism, and arguably took away from Scotland’s strengths.

Only Italy have made fewer line breaks, and Scotland also rank fourth in the Six Nations for attacking entries into the opposition’s 22. Is there a case for Scotland going back to keeping the ball in hand and launching more counter attacks?

How Townsend and Russell strike the balance between the boot and using the hands will be fascinating if they’re to produce more magic.

Are improving England better prepared?

Clearly what Scotland do is only part of the equation. And there is no question the Scots’ recent good run against their rivals has coincided with a poor spell generally for England in the Six Nations.

There are signs under Steve Borthwick, though, that things are improving. They were so close to pulling off a spectacular heist against South Africa in the World Cup semi-final and they have won their first two games of this campaign against Italy and Wales.

And while there is talk about wanting more from themselves in attack, it seems unlikely England are going to rock up at Murrayfield and throw the ball around.

A brilliant kick-pressure gameplan in sodden conditions almost got them past the Springboks in France and the template for England may well be the only victory they have had against Scotland in the past six meetings.

In 2020 they triumphed 13-6 in horrible weather at Murrayfield. They kicked 400 metres longer than Scotland, forced 14 handling errors and 21 turnovers.

The winning try came from a mistake by Stuart Hogg as the ball squirmed from his grasp under the posts after a kick through, resulting in a five-metre scrum and Ellis Genge powering over.

Although conditions are not expected to be as awful and Russell, who missed that 2020 defeat, will be playing, England will surely aim to crank the pressure up again.

Then it’s over to Scotland to see if they can win the battle in the air and to get around England’s new blitz defence under coach Felix Jones.

“In the past few fixtures, we’ve talked a lot about how they’ve had a lot of thunderbolts, tries from nowhere almost,” England scrum-half Danny Care told the Rugby Union Daily podcast this week. “We’ve got to stop them from happening.”

The Calcutta Cup could turn on whether Scotland can make lightening strike again.