Wales v Scotland: Roof or no roof - this is the team to end 22-year wait for a Scottish win in Cardiff

If not now then when? Scotland’s long wait for a win in Cardiff spans seven prime ministers, four US presidents and 7,974 days.

When the teams line up in the Principality Stadium on Saturday evening the hosts will have a full-back who was not born when the Scots last prevailed in the Welsh capital 22 years ago.

What is it about this ground that causes such anguish for Scots? It’s noisy certainly, hostile even, and who could blame Gregor Townsend for asking for the roof to be left open? Every little helps, after all. The Scotland coach has since changed his mind, of course, and the retractable lid will stay shut. Mind games by Townsend? Or flip-flopping that smacks of uncertainty? We shall see.

In truth, Scotland should have more than enough to make a winning start to the 2024 Six Nations regardless of the roof. The bookmakers certainly think so. Townsend’s side are 4/7 favourites, with Wales at 9/5.

Scotland scrum-half Ben White during the team run at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on the eve of the Guinness Six Nations opener against Wales. (Picture: David Davies/PA Wire)

Scotland are certainly the more experienced. The word 'callow' has been bandied around a lot this week to describe Wales. Cameron Winnett, the aforementioned full-back, is making his Test debut after 15 games of professional rugby. Dafydd Jenkins, at 21, is their youngest captain since a 20-year-old Gareth Edwards led out Wales against Scotland in 1968. Stellar names of the recent past are missing, either retired or injured. Alun Wyn Jones, Dan Biggar, and Leigh Halfpenny are all gone. Louis Rees-Zammit has swapped rugby for American football. Jac Morgan, Taulupe Faletau and Dewi Lake are all injured, and George North joined the casualty list this week.

In their place come a clutch of promising tyros. Townsend made positive noises when asked about them this week. He spoke of “young players coming in who are on form” and “full of confidence”. But a cursory look at the United Rugby Championship table tells a different story. Welsh rugby is not in a good place. Their teams occupy three of the bottom five places in the league and only Ospreys, who are eighth, are in a play-off position at the halfway point of the season. Those four teams supply 12 of Wales’ starting XV on Saturday.

Scotland, by contrast, draw heavily on high-flying Glasgow Warriors, selecting nine of their side from Franco Smith’s squad who are third in the URC. Sixth-placed Edinburgh supply four players, with the other two, Finn Russell and Ben White, coming from England and France respectively.

Russell, however, has warned that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts where Wales are concerned. “When the Welsh boys put that red jersey on, they become different players to when they are at their clubs, so it is a massive challenge for us to come down here to try and win,” said the Scotland captain.

Russell, 31, is playing in his ninth Six Nations campaign. Richie Gray, who will run the Scots lineout, is winning his 79th cap. The first-choice front row of Pierre Schoeman, George Turner and Zander Fagerson have 128 caps between them. Wales’ pack, by comparison, have 180 caps in total. Their tighthead prop Leon Brown is making his first start in the Six Nations

Russell never lacks for confidence but he stressed the importance of “belief rather than arrogance”. Memories of Scotland being beaten up in Cardiff two years ago remain raw. They didn’t match the Welsh physically that day and saw their Six Nations campaign derailed in the second week, undoing the good work of a win over England the week before.

Townsend said the expectation within the group was that Scotland would win but he also knows things may not go as planned. It’s both sides’ first game of the tournament, their first outings since the World Cup. New personnel creates uncertainty and Russell hinted at a more pragmatic approach from the Scots.

“We know Wales like to kick, whether it’s kicking long, kicking contestables, kicking in attack, so we’ve had a bit more kicking in our sessions this week,” he said.

“We’re not going to lose the attacking side we had in the World Cup. However, coming down here we can’t be running it from everywhere and giving away costly turnovers in our own half. The territory battle and the kicking battle will be massive. We’ve still got that attacking mentality but at times myself, Ben [White], Kyle [Rowe] will have to put boot to ball.”

When Scotland thrashed Wales at Murrayfield last year Russell was exemplary but the home side had to win the first-half battle before letting rip. The second period saw the stand-off dovetail with centres Sione Tuipulotu and Huw Jones and Russell would like to see others also step into the first receiver role when appropriate.

“That’s something I spoke to Gregor about after the World Cup,” he said, “having wingers, back-three players, centres, whoever it is, stepping up in that first ball player position instead of thinking ‘when the 10’s not there we’ve got to go through nine’. That’s something we’ve run really well over the last couple of weeks and we might get a chance to use it on Saturday or we might not. It just depends on the game.”

Wales have lost eight of their last 10 Six Nations games. They haven’t won a home match in the championship since they beat Scotland here in Cardiff in 2022. In the interim, Italy have come to the Principality and won, and so have Georgia. A Scottish victory is long overdue but, as Russell points out, sport doesn’t work like that.

“I know Italy and other teams have won here in the last couple of years but that doesn’t make it any easier,” he said. “They’ve got a new squad, an exciting young squad, so it’s going to be tough. Warren Gatland has been back for a year and they had a good World Cup. As much as people will say we’re due them one, it’s not quite as easy as that. We can’t think we’ve not won here in 22 years and it’s just going to happen, or now it’s time we’re due them one. It doesn’t work like that. We need to play our best rugby to make sure we get a win.”