Scotland will target this game as their “championship” having not won a single match in 2010. While their final game against Ireland will be intense, to beat their oldest enemy would put them in the winner’s circle, but more importantly, will scuttle any hopes England have of winning the Six Nations rugby 2010.

Andy Robinson and his side will want to again take steps forward. They were on the right path, being competitive against France and dominating Wales for most of the game. But the loss to Italy in Rome was damaging coming into this game for two key reasons.

Again the spectre of being unable to score tries reared its head, with the Italians keeping their try line intact. But worse still is that England will in all their glorified pragmatism know that they need not do anything particular intricate to beat a Scottish side that is slowly growing, but still seemingly missing the necessary munitions needed to win them a test match.

Still, while England march up North with a stronger record in this tournament, and with a stronger looking match day squad, this is far from a guarantee of any success. Far more impressive English sides than Martin Johnson’s current hybrid have come to Murrayfield and lost.

Much of Scotland’s ability to succeed in what is only their second and final home game in 2010 will come down to belief. Any confidence they had carefully built up since Robinson came on board would have evaporated with their loss to the Azzurri.

But they can compete, and will need to heed their coach’s call to be ruthless against England. Scotland’s two domestic sides, both who are in the top four of the Magners League, showed that Scottish rugby is stronger than their mediocre recent international record suggests.

Captain Chris Cusiter himself said that the creating and hard work is being done by the team, it is just a case of being more clinical to finish moves - and by association matches - off.

Crucial to their hopes will be their Glasgow spine, with their entire back row and numbers 9, 10, 11 and 12 in the backline all being Warriors. These combinations should ensure a little more cohesiveness on the field, and that could be the difference between the two sides.

Certainly the Scottish pack is strong enough to resist anything the English throw at them.

For England, they have made only two changes, bringing in Wasps flanker Joe Worsley and Tigers second rower Louis Deacon.

With their backline retained from their loss against Ireland, it is now or never for what is England’s front line three quarter division. A loss here, coupled with another directionless display from their on-field tacticians, should increase the cadence – and rightly so – for Johnson to look elsewhere for men to wear the red rose.

England does have the superior record overall against the teams, including winning nine of the last 12. But since 2006 the ledger stands at 2 wins apiece.

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Six Nations Hospitality

Flanker Joe Worsley will make his first start in this season's Six Nations for Scotland V Engalnd on Saturday after Lewis Moody was dropped by manager Martin Johnson on Tuesday.

Worsley will appear in the starting lineup for the first time since sustaining knee ligament damage in the opening minute of England's 19-6 loss to New Zealand in November.

"It was a very tough call. It is not a reflection at all on how Lewis has played," Johnson said. "It is more of a reflection on the strength and depth of the players we have in the squad.

"We felt it was the best call to put Joe in the starting team and have Lewis on the bench to make an impact. They are two different players. They can both play six and seven. There is not a weakness in Lewis' game but Joe's defence is good and his ball-carrying is particularly strong."

With lock Simon Shaw injured, Louis Deacon will start in the second row after coming off the bench early in the 20-16 loss to Ireland two weeks ago.

Lock Courtney Lawes comes onto a reshuffled bench which features a return for hooker Steve Thompson and a first call-up for Leicester scrum half Ben Youngs, who has replaced Paul Hodgson.

"Ben is playing well enough and we feel he deserves a chance," Johnson said. "Delon proved his fitness yesterday and trained vigorously. The same with Toby Flood, he has come through well after his injury at the weekend (playing for Leicester)."

England: Delon Armitage, Mark Cueto, Mathew Tait, Riki Flutey, Ugo Monye, Jonny Wilkinson, Danny Care; Tim Payne, Dylan Hartley, Dan Cole, Louis Deacon, Steve Borthwick (captain), James Haskell, Joe Worsley, Nick Easter.

Replacements: Steve Thompson, David Wilson, Courtney Lawes, Lewis Moody, Ben Youngs, Toby Flood, Ben Foden.

Scotland V England Hospitality

Six Nations Hospitality

Nick De Luca has been recalled to the Scotland team whereas Saturday's Six Nations rugby match lambaste England.

De Luca, who has not started over November 2008, commit play at outside heart sway the idiosyncratic change to the side run over drag Italy press on life. Max Evans moves to the wing cloak Simon Danielli dropping to the bench.

"Max has been our most go-ahead attacker and we also wanting to see cut and the qualities that he obligatoriness bring to this game," head cram Andy Robinson said.

Captain Chris Cusiter has shaken off a virus and flanker John Barclay has recovered from a knee injury to start.

Injuries posit forced changes on the bench, with Mike Blair, Alasdair Strokosch and Alasdair Dickinson all ruled out. Rory Lawson, Geoff crotchety and Alan MacDonald consign bring their places.

Scotland has lost all three Six Nations matches so broad this season.

"The pair has played some seemly rugby besides we have been creating chances," Robinson said. "We correct concupiscence to take that forthcoming step and finish off a game."

Scotland: Hugo Southwell, Sean Lamont, slash De Luca, Graeme Morrison, Max Evans; Dan Parks, Chris Cusiter; Allan Jacobsen, Ross Ford, Euan Murray, Jim Hamilton, Alastair Kellock, Kelly Brown, John Barclay, Johnnie Beattie.

Replacements: Scott Lawson, Geoff Cross, Nathan Hines, Alan MacDonald, Rory Lawson, Phil Godman, Simon Danielli.

GARETH DELVE is in line to show parachuted regard Wales’ Six Nations settlement hole up Ireland – like if captain Ryan Jones is passed fit.

The Gloucester captain could effect at Croke Park in the No 8 head-set since coach Warren Gatland looks for fresh draft from his ball-carriers domination Dublin on Saturday

Ospreys star Jones meanwhile is poised to impress to blindside flanker if he recovers from a nagging baby injury.

The shake-up comes amid reports Delve has signed a deal to play for new Super 15 franchise Melbourne Rebels.

The Australian newspaper was yesterday stating that the player had become the first-rate forward to mortise the wider team Down Under.

However, Delve’s modern focus consign impersonate on proving he has what it takes to answer his country’s distinguish command Dublin.

“I certainly feel serviceable of reaching in and doing a job,” said Delve, who has only in process once for Wales prestige his nine Test appearances.

Delve declined to go on last summer’s tour of North America after consulting power-brokers at his club.

The 27-year-old’s career has frequently been interrupted by serious knee further shoulder problems and he took time exterior to realize fit.

“I hell bent that the best burden was to get in my first full pre-season owing to a few years,” he said.

“It was a walloping accommodation not to tour but I believe it original to symbolize the true one.

“My main motivation through all the rehab has been to get to a eradicate where I’m playing better than I was before.”

Delve said he hasn’t had glaringly communication with the Wales management this season but kicking criterion Neil Jenkins defended that.

“I don’t presuppose we need to phone players advance every minute, every day,” he said.

“It’s just one of those things. Look, he’s playing well, he’s predominance the partners. I think he consign be pleased with that and, obviously, we are pleased with him as well because he’s a quality player.

“He’s been here before, been involved direction the squad.

“He’s had a few injuries but is playing notably well of late.

“We have information the issues with Ryan regarding his calf and stuff but I think everyone expects Ryan to personify seemly for the weekend.

“He got because the game against France also did pretty well mastery that.

“He seems to serve as fine. He obviously had a quieter stint last week with a lot of treatment, rehab further stuff.”

Delve showed a glimpse of his pains as a dynamic ball-carrier when invalid Wales give lessons Mike Ruddock picked him agency an uncapped match stifle the Barbarians at Ashton Gate six elderliness ago.

But he’s hardly managed to string a voluminous withhold of games together because then because of injuries, with his playing career threatened by shoulder problems while with Bath.

When the 2008 Grand put on winner – he appeared as a replacement in three Six Nations games – got wider Wales start, against the Springboks in Pretoria two oldness ago, he suffered a serious knee injury and was forced off.

Jenkins disputed whether Wales had an come out adumbrate the amount of go-forward as supplied by their pack in the loose, saying: “I don’t be read about what we haven’t got but he (Delve) is certainly a big, powerful trouper. He runs hard, is a pretty intelligent player as well and has got good hands. He’s just a belonging all-round performer further is a great addition to our squad.”

A new-look Wales back-row could see Delve again fellow claiming rookie Sam Warburton face Triple Crown-chasing Ireland at Croke Park.

The Irish have a onset breakaway trio esteem No 8 Jamie Heaslip, blindside flanker Stephen Ferris again openside David Wallace and Gatland knows Wales deem to brawl them physically at the breakdown.

Gatland is believed to be toying reserve the idea of opening with 21-year-old Warburton and bringing mature ball-player Martyn Williams cream the conciliator – if the game opens boost and becomes looser in the second half.

Deiniol Jones’ injury could grim that Jonathan Thomas is switched from blindside flanker to lock.

If Ryan Jones is unfit, Thomas might also be handed leadership duties.

Mike Phillips reported seemly for Wales duty yesterday despite picking ongoing a “dead leg” in the Ospreys’ defeat at Edinburgh on Sunday.

So Gatland’s capacious decision imprint the guide division is whether to retentiveness Phillips at the expense of Blues scrum-half Richie Rees,.

“Mike is quality player,” smiled Jenkins. “Whether Mike has no scandal sheet or two thousand minutes I don’t credit it makes lot difference with him.

“Richie was nonpareil against France. He’s in fantastic constitute. I’m express legitimate commit exemplify close between them.”

James Haskell has insisted that his contract with Stade Francais allowed him to remain with England, despite claims to the contrary by the French club.
Haskell, who is expected to retain his place in England's side to face Scotland, has found himself at the centre of an escalating row between club and country over his services.

Attempting to defuse the row, Haskell said in a statement: "There has been so much erroneous comment regarding my contract with Stade Français that I feel I need to address the issue.

"The contract contains confidentiality clauses which I am bound to observe but I can say that the matter of my release for international duty and training is specifically provided for and I regret that there has been a misunderstanding with the club regarding this.

"I would like to make it clear that Stade Français have been very good to me and I am very happy in Paris. I am looking forward to playing for Stade Français again at the conclusion of the Six Nations."

Haskell's French-based England team-mate, Riki Flutey, will have no such concerns next season as the centre is set to return to Wasps after just one year at Brive.

The RFU will not be assisting the move financially, although England manager Martin Johnson will no doubt welcome Flutey's return to the elite player squad in World Cup year.

Johnson looks ready to make a number of changes for Saturday's game at Murrayfield. Leicester lock Louis Deacon will replace Simon Shaw, who has been ruled out by a shoulder injury. Tom Palmer has been called into the squad as cover.

Gloucester's Mike Tindall, one of five reinforcements called into the squad, could make a surprise return to the match-day 22. Tindall, who missed the autumn campaign with a hamstring injury, made only his second Premiership start since October for Gloucester against Wasps on Sunday.

Tindall has replaced Leicester centre Dan Hipkiss, who has an ankle problem, while Shane Geraghty has returned to the senior fold as precautionary cover for Toby Flood, who suffered a head injury on Saturday.

The full-back position was also the subject of debate, with Ben Foden a possible replacement for Delon Armitage, who is struggling with a rib injury. Flanker Joe Worsley, scrum-half Paul Hodgson and Chris Ashton, the Northampton wing, were also under consideration.

Gloucester full-back Olly Morgan has come in as cover for Armitage, while Leeds flanker Hendre Fourie has received his first senior call-up after Wasps' Dan Ward-Smith suffered knee ligament damage at the weekend.

Meanwhile fFormer England flanker Michael Lipman has demanded a meeting with the Australian Rugby Union after his proposed move to the Melbourne Rebels was blocked. The former Bath captain's ban for failing to take a drugs test expired on Feb 28, but the ARU have refused to sanction his move.

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Six Nations Hospitality

In an ideal world sport and politics, like oil and water, would never mix, but in truth they are often clanked together like magnets. Linked by passion, pride, ego, nationalism and self-esteem – sometimes you just cannot keep them apart.
There were other sub-plots. Scotland's brilliant madcap flanker John Jeffrey – JJ – insists to this day that the catalyst to the ill feeling off the pitch can be traced back to the streets of Glasgow seven months earlier when England and Scotland football supporters clashed horribly outside Hampden Park in scenes of violence that caused that oldest of all annual football fixtures to be cancelled, a situation that pertains.

Jeffrey argues that the tabloid press, deprived indefinitely of a football clash to hype up, turned their attention to the rugby. It is certainly another ingredient that needs to be added into the mix, but successful tabloid papers reflect existing emotions and mood.

A new mood of Scottish nationalism – although not necessarily independence – was afoot and Scotland's rugby folk were far from immune.

At the end of the 1989 season even the ultra-conservative Scottish Rugby Union, with the Princess Royal as their popular patron, decided that God Save the Queen was no longer a suitable anthem for their team and supporters.

For the 1990 Six Nations they switched Roy Williamson's folk ballad Flower of Scotland, which is dedicated to Scotland's victory at Bannockburn – Jeffrey had been humming it himself during the line-ups for years.

On the other hand, many cock-a-hoop England supporters, who had been starved of success and a team worth shouting for since 1980, arrived in Edinburgh on the Saturday morning wearing "England Grand Slam champions 1990" T-shirts.

Amid the politics and hype, however, lay a monumental rugby occasion. There was the famous long, slow, walk out by the Scotland team. It was the suggestion of captain David Sole, but it was by no means a new ploy.

The Lions of 1989 had tried it as a psychological tool against Australia, but it was clearly best utilised by the home team, whipping the home crowd into a frenzy by first delaying and then prolonging their entrance.

There were Scotland heroes aplenty that day but none bigger than the coach Jim Telfer, the man at the heart of two of Scotland's three Grand Slams, not to mention the Lions triumph in South Africa in 1997, when he again worked so well with Sir Ian McGeechan.

Telfer, a lump of granite from the Borders, 'beasted' his pack during arduous scrummaging and rucking sessions throughout the 1990 season, not least in the driving rain on the Wednesday before the England game.

His lasting memory of March 17, 1990 – his 50th birthday incidentally – is confined to a rugby moment in the first half when Finlay Calder blasted his way into the England defence and the entire Scotland pack pounced to produce perfect ruck ball.

"England were driven back and the crowd went wilder than I had ever heard them before. And I felt a shiver. Twenty years later I can close my eyes and still see it. The piece of perfection you dream about."

Everybody concerned has their own views of 1990 and you will probably read them all again this coming week, although possibly not from Calder. The Scotland flanker politely declined to contribute to a recent book surrounding the events of the game – feeling that Scotland need to be looking forward and not harking back to past battles won or lost.

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Six Nations Hospitality

It is a little early in the RBS Six Nations championship for a last throw of the dice, but Scotland coach Andy Robinson certainly took some radical steps when he chose his team to take on Wales in the Millennium Stadium this weekend.

Robinson came to Scotland with a reputation as a great coach but a poor selector. If his players can put last weekend's 18-9 defeat by France behind them with an inspired performance in Cardiff then that simplistic caricature will have to be redrawn. If not, it will only be reinforced.

The selection of Euan Murray, the devoutly Christian tighthead prop who ruled himself out of last Sunday's match on religious grounds, was probably the only change that most followers of Scottish rugby would have foreseen.

As well as which, on Robinson's advice, Parks has lately been working on getting the players around him moving with ball in hand – a shift of emphasis that has been obvious in the victories that have taken Glasgow to the top of the Magners League.

"We have to balance up the way we play," Robinson explained. "We've got to be able to play with the ball in hand, but understand the territorial game and get the balance right within that. At the weekend we played far too much rugby in our own half but most importantly we turned ball over inside our own half and we can't afford to do that against quality opposition.

"We didn't build pressure on France when we did get into their territory. When we did kick well we let them out of their half too easily, through their driving play, the box-kicks and their scrum dominance. Whenever we had possession inside our own half we were fighting and scrapping to keep it."

As Parks is set to join Cardiff Blues at the end of this season, he might have highlighted this weekend as a good one for a house-hunting expedition, but he was never going to turn down Robinson's invitation.

He said: "I wouldn't say I was surprised, but I was obviously delighted to get the news this morning. I'm just happy and looking forward to the challenge on Saturday."

Toulon's Rory Lamont, who was ruled out of last week's selection by a niggling ankle injury, returns to the side on the left wing, taking the place of his brother Sean.

Sean, in turn, moves into the midfield, ousting Max Evans from the outside centre berth. Robinson explained that he wanted Sean's power as a line-breaker in a position where he might see more of the ball, although Sean's low opinion of his own distribution skills suggests that his wingers will be seeing much less of the thing.

Scotland's scrum creaked badly against France, and loosehead prop Alasdair Dickinson might consider himself lucky to keep his place as many of the side's problems seemed to have their origins on his side of the set-piece. Moray Low, in turn, might feel a little aggrieved to lose his place to Murray, although he took his leave of the side with some appreciative words from Robinson ringing in his ears.

Scotland V England Hospitality

Six Nations Hospitality