Preview: Scotland V France

What they said

Scotland Head Coach Gregor Townsend: “The biggest games in the championship are the ones we play at home. We know we’re now playing one of the top teams in the world. We don’t need anything else to rise us up to play some of our best rugby this weekend.

“France have a lot of physicality and we know they’ll go for it in the ruck and in the maul. They’re a very strong carrying side and they’ve got jackalers right throughout their team.”

The teams

The stats

• Scotland have won three of their last four home matches against France in the Guinness Men’s Six Nations (L1).
• Scotland made the most kicks in play of any side in the opening round of this year’s Guinness Men’s Six Nations (38), while France made the fewest (20).
• Scotland’s Finn Russell was the only player to assist more than one try in Round 1 of this year’s Guinness Men’s Six Nations (2), surpassing Dan Biggar as the player with the 2^nd most try assists in the history of the Championship (Russell 19, Biggar 18), behind only Conor Murray (28).
• Scotland have won six of their last seven Test matches on home soil (L1), including each of their last four, their longest winning run at Scottish Gas Murrayfield since 2017-2018 (also 4), a run which included a Guinness Men’s Six Nations victory over France (32-26 in February 2018).