Wales face Scotland with the numbers stacked in their favour

Here, Press Association Sport looks ahead to the fixture at Murrayfield.

Decade of dominance

Wales have won 10 of their last 11 Six Nations meetings with Scotland, with those 10 wins coming by 16 points on average.

That margin is inflated by 2014’s 51-3 win in Cardiff, which featured an early red card for Scotland’s Stuart Hogg, but Wales have rarely been tested. Only three of the 10 games have finished within one score – 31-24 in 2010, 26-23 at Murrayfield in 2015 and 27-23 the following year.

Scotland’s one win in that period, though, came in the last Edinburgh meeting two years ago when wings Tommy Seymour and Tim Visser scored tries in a 29-13 success.

Wales bounced back to win 34-7 last year, Leigh Halfpenny with two tries and six goals, and average 28.8 points to Scotland’s 15.8 in the 11 games.

In all, Scotland have just four wins over Wales – plus a 28-28 draw in 2001 – in the competition since it expanded to six teams in 2000.

Scots snubbed on Lions tours

The make-up of this century’s British and Irish Lions squads gives another indication of the imbalance between the teams in recent years.

No Scotland player made a Test appearance on the 2017 tour of New Zealand, continuing a recent trend and taking it to a new extreme.

Scottish players had made one substitute appearance on each of the previous three tours, always in the third and final Test – Richie Gray in 2013, Ross Ford in 2009 and Gordon Bulloch in 2005.

Wales, by contrast, have contributed an average of 12 players to each Lions squad since 2001 – second to England and ahead of Ireland in that category – in addition to coach Warren Gatland for the last two tours.

Those players have made on average 20.6 Test appearances and 15.8 starts per series, figures also surpassed only by England with 24.6 and 16.8.

Scotland average 1.4 appearances and 0.6 starts – prop Tom Smith remains their most recent Lions Test starter, wearing the number one jersey for all three games in 2001.