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.

Scotland V England Hospitality

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.

Scotland V England Hospitality

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

When the International Rugby Board started its world rankings England were the best team in the world. Six years on, they stand in eighth position, their lowest ever, proof of their inexorable decline since their now team manager, Martin Johnson, lifted the Webb Ellis Trophy in 2003.

Successive away defeats to Wales and Ireland have dragged England down from sixth at the start of the Six Nations to eighth in the latest rankings table, which was released today. Johnson has come under fire, with England winning only two of his seven matches in charge, against the Pacific Islanders and Italy, but the decay set in long before his arrival.

It could get worse. England will drop to ninth if they fail to win their last two Six Nations matches, against France and Scotland at Twickenham, but they are also only a couple of big victories away from fourth-placed Argentina. While the top three teams – New Zealand, South Africa and Australia – are comfortably ahead of the chasing pack, little separates the Pumas from the English.

 Wales have slipped from fourth to fifth after losing to France last Friday night while Les Bleus have leapfrogged England. Ireland remain in fifth, but a first grand slam since 1948 would take them above Wales.

 England have won only 50% of their Six Nations matches since winning the World Cup six years ago. Only three of their last 12 away matches in the championship have ended in victory, two of them in Rome, while their record against the major southern hemisphere nations since 2003 is dire.

 England have won none of their seven Tests against the All Blacks in the past six years, two out of eight against South Africa and two in seven against Australia, a total of four wins in 22 Tests with only one coming since the beginning of 2007.

 In contrast, England won 12 consecutive matches against the three southern hemisphere heavyweights between 2000 and 2003, culminating in the victory over Australia in the World Cup final in Sydney, a success that followed a Six Nations grand slam. In a period of nine months that year, they defeated every one of the other nations in the top 10 of the world rankings, but their fall since then leaves them unsure of when their next victory will be.

Scotland V England Hospitality

Six Nations Hospitality

I am sure my fellow resident on these pages, Brian Moore - with whom I have more than once enjoyed banter on the airwaves - will welcome a calibrated alternative view of the events of March 17, 1990, when Scotland beat England to win the Grand Slam at Murrayfield.

Glory day: Chris Gray, David Sole and Finlay Calder celebrate during the 13-7 Grand Slam victory over England at Murrayfield Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Brian believes – understandably given the way the sky fell on England that afternoon – that almost supernatural forces propelled Tony Stanger across the line for the Scots' winning try.

In his book, Beware of the Dog, which has rattled a few cages north of the border, Brian states that antipathy towards Margaret Thatcher, loathing of the poll tax and downright xenophobic anti-Englishness were behind Scotland's greatest ever victory on the rugby field.

Well, it is certainly true that the Iron Lady was not held in the highest regard in Scotland but the day she was demonised at a sporting event was when she turned up at Hampden Park for the Celtic v Dundee United Scottish Cup final in 1985.

She was greeted with a mass display of red cards in protest against health service cuts and then had to sit through a barrage of songs and chants of such profanity – including one about her husband, Denis – that they cannot be hinted at here.

By contrast, Murrayfield, with its large numbers of supporters drawn from the Scottish public and private school system, was much more like Thatcher's natural constituency.

As for the poll tax, while substantial numbers protested by refusing to pay in Scotland, there was no civil disorder.

In fact, the worst violence, which left5,000 injured and led to 339 arrests – happened in Trafalgar Square exactly two weeks after David Sole's side won the Grand Slam.

On the other hand, a certain frisson may have been created by the evident assumption on the part of several English players that they had only to turn up to collect the prize – hence their insistence on being photographed underneath the posts with the rugby WAGs an hour before kick-off, an event noted by the home support and players.

And, as my wife and I left Murrayfield that day, we came across a white woollen sweater trampled into the mud.

It bore the red rose crest, around which were the words "England 1990 Grand Slam Winners".

I have always regretted that we didn't take it home and stick it in the wash.

Still – and my dear friend Brian will be the first to say as much – it is never too late to cleanse the doors of perception.

Scotland V England Hospitality

Six Nations Hospitality