Suddenly, Scotland’s championship is at a huge turning point.
After the agonising one-point defeat by England at Twickenham nine days ago, Gregor Townsend’s side are left facing a nightmare scenario.
Wales, their next opponents, were on a hiding to nothing before Warren Gatland was replaced by Matt Sherratt, but suddenly are not out of it when they come to Murrayfield on Saturday.
Lose there, and Scotland would enter the final weekend when they head to Paris with still only one win for the tournament.
For a team that is meant to have championship aspirations with its supposed golden generation, it does not bear thinking about.
So with this weekend’s fixture going from gimme to game on, our expert panel sat down and tackled the biggest issues facing the team. Here’s what former Scotland captains and Mail Sport columnists ANDY NICOL and JASON WHITE, plus deputy chief sports writer CALUM CROWE, had to say.
Scotland’s players are gutted after narrowly losing the Calcutta Cup to England at Twickenham
Finn Russell’s last-gasp missed conversion cost Scotland but they could have been out of sight
England’s defence ground Scotland down in the second half and the visitors had no answer
Just how big is Saturday’s game?
ANDY NICOL: The championship has gone but there is still a huge amount to play for in the final two games, starting with Wales. It is now a must-win game for Scotland.
They must show the same attacking intent they had at Twickenham but be much more clinical. Wales will be full of confidence after getting a huge ‘new coach’ bounce last week against Ireland and now they have another free hit, which makes them very dangerous.
Scotland can restore some pride with two wins to finish the Six Nations but I know which game is easier out of Wales at home and France in Paris.
CALUM CROWE: These are two teams who won’t be anywhere near challenging for silverware this year, so you could argue this is a dead rubber.
But it’s not. Not at all, actually. For Gregor Townsend, this is now an extremely dangerous fixture and perhaps one of the biggest games of his tenure.
Why? Because if Scotland were to lose ahead of a trip to Paris on the final weekend, they would be staring down the barrel of a one-win championship.
JASON WHITE: It has become a must-win and a pivotal game for us. If we play to our potential, we are better than Wales by at least a couple of scores.
The challenge for Scotland will be: if the pressure comes on during the game, can we react with the right response and decisions to prove our superiority on the pitch?
Defeat by Wales on Saturday would invite a nightmare scenario of finishing with only one win
Scotland will need to play close to their best to ensure they see off the threat posed by Wales
At the the start of the championship, we all saw this as a Scotland victory and the players and supporters need to create the environment that Murrayfield is our fortress for the game.
Surely Scotland finishing with only one win is unthinkable? Or is it?
JW: Anything is possible in sport. The bounce factor of a new coach coming in for Wales must not be overlooked. Add in injuries and how red cards can come about easily with the rules on head contact and things can change very quickly.
Knowing what we do about the Scotland players, they are capable of winning the last two games but they need to perform to the level we know they can and nothing less.
A one-win campaign would be a total disaster and the impact on Lions selection would be huge. I am confident we will be better than that.
AN: It is more thinkable now than it was two weeks ago when Wales looked completely broken and as low as they have ever been.
Matt Sherratt breathed life into them and, in three training sessions, got their attack looking so good, which is remarkable.
I looked at this Welsh team and thought they will cause someone a real shock because they have good players.
Hopefully, that shock was almost beating Ireland, not beating Scotland, but they will throw everything at Scotland at Murrayfield.
Wales were much improved in running Ireland very close in Matt Sherratt’s first game in charge
Wales will throw everything at Scotland in order to back up their display in Cardiff last time out
In saying all that, they got a huge boost from playing in Cardiff so maybe they will focus on their final game at home to England!
CC: There’s no way Townsend would survive that. If he is to have any chance of seeing out the final year of his contract, he needs to beat Wales.
Even then it still looks uncertain if two wins would be enough to stay in the job. Although Wales were much-improved against Ireland last time out, there’s no way they should be coming to Murrayfield and winning.
A one-win championship would be unthinkable and surely spell the end for Townsend as head coach.
How frustrating is it that Scotland are merely salvaging pride from the championship now?
CC: It’s another year down the drain. Scotland were dreadful against Ireland and failed to beat a very limited England team when the game was there for the taking.
Given how consistently this team have fallen short under Townsend, the head coach must be held accountable.
On and off the pitch, everything feels like it’s reaching an end point under Townsend. I think he has been allowed to continue in the job for too long.
We’re just watching the same movie year after year, wasting what should be the best years of Finn Russell’s career.
Gregor Townsend must be held accountable for the years in which Scotland have fallen short
Scotland are accused of wasting the prime years of their world-class fly-half Russell’s career
AN: It is frustrating because the width of a post has stopped us looking at the rest of the Six Nations with a chance of being in the mix come the final game.
That is top-level sport. The margins between success and failure are so fine but, yet again, Scotland are battling it out for the minor places.
We just seem unable to take the step to the next level.
JW: We have shown in different areas we are a top-class side but not put it together as a complete performance for 80 minutes yet.
To win internationals against top sides, you need to be at your best and we have two more opportunities to do that.
The boys can be proud of how they played against England but they will be hugely frustrated they did not come out on top of the scoreboard.
Where did it go wrong for Scotland against England?
AN: Fundamentally, it came down to Scotland not taking their chances and that is a combination of tries, conversions and possible drop goals.
We played great rugby to set up a victory and a comfortable victory at that. Ordinarily, when you make nine clean line-breaks and beat 35 defenders, you score more than three tries.
England’s scrambling defence in their 22 was outstanding, as was their work at the breakdown
England’s power came to the fore as they turned a 10-7 deficit at half-time into a 16-15 victory
We had eight consecutive entries into the England 22 with no points scored, so this is where the often-forgotten skill of a drop goal should have come into the mix.
Obviously, when you enter the 22 the goal is to score a try, but the bare minimum must be to come away with three points.
To be fair to England, their scrambling defence in their 22 was outstanding, as was their work at the breakdown and their discipline which stopped us scoring more tries.
This is where a more pragmatic approach from Finn Russell should be to take a drop goal. It keeps the scoreboard ticking over and doesn’t give England the high of snuffing out another Scotland attack and no points conceded.
This was a huge missed opportunity to win another game at Twickenham.
JW: The main issue for me was that we could not convert our dominance in possession and territory into a lead that we could use to squeeze England out.
Scoring three tries and leaving at least a couple out there shows our attack fired but it feels like we could have won by 15 points, only to somehow lose.
My main takeaway is that our backline confirmed they are world-class but our game management of seeing out tight games and finding a way to win is not there yet.
England played with very little ambition and kicked the ball away relentlessly at Twickenham
Scotland’s downfall came out of their failure to be further ahead after dominating the first half
CC: I was actually taken aback by quite how poor England were. They showed absolutely no ambition to play any rugby and kicked the ball relentlessly.
Scotland’s downfall came largely in their failure to be further ahead at half-time, given how dominant they had been in the opening 40 minutes.
They let England off the hook going in only 10-7 ahead at the break. They left the door open when they really should have been out of sight.
England’s power in defence came to the fore in the second half and Scotland didn’t have any answer to break them down.
The referee, Pierre Brousset, drew some criticism for certain decisions at Twickenham. What did you think?
CC: I thought he got a lot of the big calls wrong.
Firstly, having watched umpteen replays of England’s try in the first half, there’s no way anyone can convince me there was anything conclusive to show the ball was down.
It was guesswork from the referee and he really should have been asked to have another look at it in greater detail by the TMO. Instead, they were very quick to award the try when the ball looked like it had been held up.
I also thought it was bizarre that Finn Russell was asked to take what would have been the match-winning conversion from a good couple of metres wider than where Duhan van der Merwe dotted the ball down.
Referee Pierre Brousset was not popular with Scotland’s players after several debatable calls
It is hard to understand how Brousset could justify awarding Tommy Freeman’s try for England
Maro Itoje wasn’t punished for going in off his feet at a ruck, whereas Scotland were punished repeatedly and often harshly at the breakdown.
JW: I am sure Gregor Townsend and his coaches were hugely frustrated, as was I, by the referee.
In the current climate of referees checking for grounding of the ball, I was totally baffled as to why he did not check the grounding of the England try. I have yet to see an angle that shows the ball making contact with the ground.
The situation at the end for the placement of the ball also looked wrong. Finn Russell seemed to be moved wider than where the ball was scored and then Maro Itoje was doing his best to pressure Russell.
It looked like gamesmanship at its best and the shot clock should have been reset.
AN: He didn’t have a great game but he was not the reason Scotland lost. That was all our own doing.
You hope the big decisions are correct; he gave a try immediately when Tommy Freeman went over the line and he was in the best possible position to make that call.
He is not calling that as a try if he is unsure if the ball was grounded or not. He was certain and you have to believe him.
Scotland were also confused by how much England seemed to get away with at the breakdown
But Scotland had enough chances to beat England and will be kicking themselves to have lost
The TV camera angles are irrelevant because he gave the try. If he had asked the question ‘any reason I cannot award a try?’ then it would have been chalked off because no angle on TV showed the ball to be grounded.
In other areas he was very inconsistent, especially at the breakdown, and what he was doing with the final conversion I do not know. It was poor to move Finn Russell two metres closer to the touchline and not stop the shot clock.
It was his first Six Nations game and, if he gets another, he will need to be a lot better.
What have you made of Finn Russell’s Six Nations?
CC: By his own high standards, I don’t think he’s been great.
He had a really mixed bag against Italy in the opening game, throwing an interception as the Azzurri broke away to score. Russell was highly critical of his own performance.
He was then pretty much non-existent against Ireland in the 20 minutes he was on the field before going off injured.
Against England, I thought it was a really mixed performance once again. Yes, his passing was sharp as Scotland dominated the first half.
But there were also moments of real sloppiness, such as when he failed to find touch with a penalty in the second half which would have given Scotland a good field position.
Scotland’s star man Russell has had a very mixed tournament by his own elevated standards
But he executed Scotland’s game plan well at Twickenham, causing England all sorts of trouble
He also left six points out there by failing to convert any of his team’s three tries. Scotland need more from their star man.
AN: Goal-kicking aside, I think Finn played really well at Twickenham.
He executed the game plan beautifully, which was to attack England in the wide channels. This caused them all sorts of trouble.
His passing and kicking from hand were spot on and he had his attacking mojo back after a poor first game against Italy.
I have mentioned above that his game-management could have been better in the second half but it is not in his DNA to go for a drop goal.
As for his goal-kicking, I doubt Russell will miss every kick attempted in any game left this season. He is an 80 to 85 per cent kicker, he just had a very bad day last weekend.
Russell was gutted to miss the crucial kick at the end against England but will be back stronger
Blair Kinghorn is an option for Scotland if Russell’s goal-kicking doesn’t return to its usual level
JW: If we take out the goal-kicking at Twickenham, Finn was excellent.
He found the holes in the English defence and his pass selection and variety was very good. When we add in the missed kicks it looks like he was poor but the last kick was very hard.
He loves that situation and would back himself, though there is the question of whether Blair Kinghorn should have taken over.
Russell needs to finish the tournament strongly to be in with a shout of selection for the Lions in the summer.
