Six Nations: Scotland are favourites against Wales but we will miss our Lion Rampant at testing venue

Scotland will want to run the ball against a Welsh team lacking in experience – we have a chance of ending long Cardiff hoodoo

Winning away in the Six Nations is hard, one reason why Grand Slams aren’t common. Sometimes you get one monkey off your back – we haven’t lost at Twickenham since 2017 – but in general, and not only for Scotland, victories away from home are rare enough to be cherished. When we won in Paris in 1995, that was our first victory there since 1969. So our long losing run in Cardiff where we haven’t won since Bill McLaren’s last commentary in 2002 is disappointing but not remarkable.

Nevertheless, we start as favourites today. This is a very inexperienced Welsh team, especially in the scrum with a captain in Dafydd Jenkins who is only 21. I guess that our locks, Richie Gray and Scott Cummings, have more caps than the Welsh pack put together. There is more experience in their back division, though Cameron Winnett at full-back is winning his first cap and Sam Costelow is playing in his first Six Nations match. That said, I’ve looked forward to seeing him do so since I watched him play for Wales under-20 against England. He is all dancing feet, imagination, impertinence and flair in the classic tradition of Max Boyce’s long ago Welsh fly-half factory, something which like the coal mines and steel-works seemed to have been closed down years ago.

Then Wales’ most experienced squad member, George North, dropped out this week. He has caused us more than a little trouble in the past, but perhaps this is balanced by the late withdrawal of Blair Kinghorn from the Scotland team. He has been in rampant form – Lion Rampant if you like – since his move to Toulouse. His replacement, the former Scotland Sevens star Kyle Rowe, now of Glasgow where he has been scoring tries for fun, deserves his chance, for he has had a hard time, first with injury, then with unemployment and a spell stacking shelves for Amazon when his club, London Irish, went bust. It’s a little surprising that he is at 15 with his club captain Kyle Steyn at 14 and not the other way round, but then wings and the full-back are pretty well interchangeable these days.

Scotland have often found the going tough in Cardiff.

On paper the Scottish forwards should dominate the Welsh who are without Jac Morgan, their inspirational World Cup captain, and also the accomplished veteran Toby Falatau, but matches aren’t won on paper and even a raw Welsh team at Cardiff is likely to be more fiercely competitive than Wales were when they lost by some thirty points at Murrayfield last year. They still have a lively-looking three-quarter line where Josh Adams is a proven Six Nations try-scorer and Saracens’ Nick Tompkins a centre I have always admired. With Steyn and Duhan van der Merwe on the wings and the Glasgow couple, Huw Jones and Sione Tuipulotu at centre, with Finn Russell conducting the orchestra have shown they can score tries against anyone. It is a measure of the quality of the Glasgow centres that Cameron Redpath is only on the bench. At any other time since we last won in Cardiff he would surely have been in the XV at either 12 or 13.

The game changes but some things remain the same. It is still rare to win internationals without a secure set scum, a safe line-out on your own throw, and some powerful gain-line breaching by the forwards. Scotland should be capable of that, even though there are some doubts about the consistent accuracy of George Turner’s throwing-in. Richie Gray may not be the galloping runner of his youth, but it’s a rare match in which he doesn’t steal a couple of opposition throw.

There will no doubt be a lot of kicking from hand, at least in the early stages. Gareth Davies, the Welsh scrum-half, is a testing box-kicker and it may be that Kinghorn’s rare ability to take the high kick and counter-attack will be missed. On the other hand, Russell is now a master of every kind of kick, and will surely test the young Welsh full-back who has played only 15 professional games. If the rain keeps off – a light drizzle is forecast – it may be an exhilarating game for Scotland at least will surely want to run the ball.

Yes, we should win but I always remember that in the first match I attended at Murrayfield a very inexperience Scottish side defeated a Welsh team 19-0 with 13 Lions, which had just thumped England by more than 20 points, 19-0.