Scotland vs England: Expect drama as ever in the Calcutta Cup

We continue our fantastic start to this year’s Six Nations tournament with the renewal of the Calcutta Cup between Scotland and England.

Scotland host the game at Murrayfield on Saturday afternoon, as they look to improve on an impressive showing in last year’s tournament. For Eddie Jones and England however, it is a different story. They come into the Nations with doubts over star-man Owen Farrell’s fitness, with Courtney Lawes and Jonny Hill out of the opener. There’s plenty of fresh faces in England’s squad, with a good chunk of the backs having never played a game in this iconic competition, but they’ll have to start well to improve on last year’s fifth placed finish.

Scotland come into this game after a fantastic Six Nations last year. Wins away at England in France, as well as a convincing victory over Italy, saw the Scots grab people’s attention. They only lost to Wales and Ireland by a total of four points combined, and will be looking to win back-to-back Calcutta Cups for just the second time since 1985. As previously mentioned, Scotland had an exceptional Six Nations in 2021, and will be looking to produce more of the same eye-raising results here. With a raucous Edinburgh crowd behind them, I think they’ll overcome what could potentially be an inexperienced England side, and their odds of 11/8 makes more sense to back than the English, who are slight favourites at odds-on.

Continuing on from our previous tip, we’ll go with Scotland -5.5 for our second choice for Saturday’s game. This bet has landed in four of the last five times that Scotland have beaten England, with -4.5 landing in the other. Scotland’s last win over England at Murrayfield came in 2018, when they resoundingly won 25-13, and I’m expecting something of a similar scoreline here. Scotland will look to Finn Russell and their Lions stars to ignite the crowd on Saturday, and their fast paced style will eventually prove too much for England on this occasion in my opinion, with Gregor Townsend’s men picking up an important win against their old rivals.

Make sure to keep an eye on the lineups which should be released on Thursday, for any surprises. Good luck if you’re following these bets, and please gamble responsibly.