Scots dream of 2000 Calcutta Cup

England go into the 123rd Calcutta Cup match today facing a resurgent Scotland side hellbent on destroying the world champions' Six Nations grand slam ambitions.

It is just the scenario that Scottish players and fans live for and exactly what they did at a sodden Murrayfield six years ago. However, that result stays the memory so strongly precisely because of its rarity.

Since the Scots won the Grand Slam decider in 1990 they have lost 15 of their 16 encounters with their southern neighbours, with the 2000 success the solitary bright spot.

Andy Robinson's side travel to Edinburgh with victories over Wales and Italy in the bag and will not want to blow the head of steam built up this season.

Last year, at Twickenham, England won 43-22 but heavy though the defeat was for Scotland, the dark blues can take some encouragement from their second-half performance in which they managed to open up the game.

England coach Robinson acknowledges that the Scotland display should serve as a warning against any complacency today.

"We saw signs of it last year," he told journalists. "They scored three tries against us at Twickenham."

The match will be decided by the ability of Scotland's relatively lightweight pack to compete with what is by any standard a massive England forward unit.

Scotland looked desperately vulnerable against Wales in the opening minutes of their 28-18 defeat in Cardiff and considering the Welsh eight had been steam-rollered by England's pack at Twickenham a week before, the prospects for the home side in this area are poor.

In front of a rare full house Scotland need a good performance to convince fans that the win over France was not a one-off but it is England who will carry the burden of pressure in what will be their most demanding championship game thus far.

French coaching rivals

France and Italy, the two Latin sides of the Six Nations, meet today in a game spiced by the love-hate relationship of their two French coaches, Bernard Laporte and Pierre Berbizier.

Laporte tried to play down the rivalry with his former hero.

"Berbizier was a great player and I adored him as a coach," he said.

Berbizier became a newspaper columnist after winning 56 caps for France, captaining the team to two Five Nations grand slams and later coaching them to the 1995 World Cup semi-finals.

France have always been the superpower of rugby on the continental side of the Channel losing only once to Italy, in 1997, in Grenoble, over the last 10 years.