1871–1924 , vs. England in Edinburgh In December 1870 a group of Scots players issued a letter of challenge in
The Scotsman and in ''
Bell's Life in London'', to play an England XX at rugby rules. This led to the first-ever rugby international match being played at
Academical Cricket Club's ground at Raeburn Place,
Edinburgh, on Monday 27 March 1871. In front of around 4,000 spectators, the Scots won the encounter by a try (made by
Angus Buchanan) and a goal (made by
William Cross) to a solitary try scored by England (a points scoring system had not then been devised so only the goal counted towards the 1–0 score). England later won the return match at the
Kennington Oval, London in the following year. The
Calcutta Cup was donated to the
Rugby Football Union in 1878 by the members of the short-lived Calcutta Rugby Club. The members had decided to disband: the cup was crafted from melted-down silver rupees which became available when the club's funds were withdrawn from the bank. The Cup is unique in that it is competed for annually only by England and Scotland. The first Calcutta Cup match was played in 1879 and, since that time, over 100 matches have taken place.
Origins of the Nations Championship In 1882 the Home Nations Championship, the fore-runner of the modern
Six Nations Championship was founded with Scotland, England,
Wales and
Ireland taking part.
1925–1945 In 1925 Scotland already had victories over France at Inverleith (25–4), Wales in Swansea (24–14) and Ireland in Dublin (14–8). England, the
Grand Slam champions of the two previous seasons were the first visitors to Murrayfield. 70,000 spectators saw the lead change hands three times before Scotland secured a 14–11 victory which gave them their first-ever Five Nations Grand Slam. In 1926, Scotland became the first
Home nation side to defeat England at Twickenham after England had won the Grand Slam five times in eight seasons. The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 brought rugby union in Scotland to a halt. The SRU cancelled all arranged trial and international matches and encouraged the member clubs to carry on as best they could. Some clubs closed down, others amalgamated and carried on playing other local clubs and, sometimes, teams from the armed forces stationed in their various areas. Scotland resumed full international matches in February 1947, losing 22–8 to Wales at Murrayfield. Scotland suffered 17 successive defeats between February 1951 and February 1955, scored only 54 points in these 17 games: 11 tries, six conversions, and four penalties. The teams from 1955 to 1963 were an improvement. There were no wins over England, but three of the games were drawn. Occasional wins were recorded against Wales, Ireland and France. 1964 was a good year for Scotland. New Zealand were held to a 0–0 draw, the last international match in which no points were scored. The Calcutta Cup was won 15–6, the first time since 1950 and they shared the Five Nations title in 1964 with Wales. In 1971 the SRU appointed
Bill Dickinson as their head coach, after years of avoidance, as it was their belief that rugby should remain an amateur sport. He was officially designated as an "adviser to the captain". Scotland were the first of the
Home Unions to run a truly nationwide club league. This was introduced in 1973 and still flourishes today with several of the country's original clubs still very much in evidence, such as
Heriots,
West of Scotland,
Watsonians and the famous '
border' clubs such as
Gala,
Hawick,
Jed-Forest,
Kelso and
Melrose. However the advent of professionalism saw Scotland's
District championship abandoned and two 'Super Districts' formed, which have resulted in the top players generally being unavailable for their clubs. These teams play in international club competitions such as the
Heineken Cup and the
Pro14. On 1 March 1975, around 104,000 spectators watched Scotland defeat Wales 12–10 in a Five Nations match at Murrayfield. The attendance at the time was a World Record for a Rugby Union match, and remains the record attendance at Murrayfield. That win was part of a run of nine successive wins at Murrayfield during the 1970s for the national side, but they were unable to transfer that form outwith Scotland, only managing two away wins during the decade. In 1977
Nairn McEwan succeeded Bill Dickinson as national coach. However, he was only able to win one international in his three years in charge. The establishment of the national leagues in 1973–74 was beginning to bear fruit; the standard of club and district rugby was higher than ever and players were more accustomed to experiencing pressure in matches where the result really mattered. inheriting a squad of genuine potential. Scotland toured
Australia in July 1982 and won the first test, Scotland's first away victory against any of the big three Southern Hemisphere sides. After this, the 1983 season was a disappointment; losing their first three Five Nations matches. However, the tournament ended on a high when Scotland recorded only their second victory over England at Twickenham since 1938. He lasted just over a year, enduring a
whitewash in the 1985 Five Nations, before resigning to concentrate on his business.
Derrick Grant was then appointed head coach. The "Reds" team included
Gavin and
Scott Hastings,
Finlay Calder and
David Sole, all of whom who would debut for Scotland in the Five Nations that year and feature prominently for the side in the years that followed. Scotland went on to share the 1986 Five Nations championship with France, each side winning three out of their four games. The series also saw Scotland thrash England 33–6 at Murrayfield; Scotland's record win over the English, at the time one point short of Scotland's best score in any rugby union international and England's heaviest defeat in over a century.
1987–2000 Scotland went to the first
World Cup, played in New Zealand and Australia in the summer of
1987.
John Rutherford, the team's general and controlling influence, had injured his knee on an unauthorised tour of Bermuda. He broke down after less than a quarter of an hour of the first World Cup match against France and never played for Scotland again. Scotland had been in the lead but the match finished level. Scotland lost to New Zealand in the quarter-final. On 27 June 1988,
Ian McGeechan was appointed as head coach to succeed Derrick Grant who had retired after the end of the 1988 Five Nations series. Their greatest year in the modern era was 1990, when their season came down to one game, a Grand Slam decider at Murrayfield against the "auld enemy", England. Both sides had won all their Five Nations fixtures, and England were overwhelming favourites despite being the away side. Scotland under the captaincy of prop
David Sole went on to win 13–7, and with it their third
Grand Slam. The match against England in 1990 was also only the second time that
Flower of Scotland was played at Murrayfield, having become Scotland's pre-match national anthem that year. SRU made no money from sponsorship after their 1990 Grand Slam as their thistle was not registered. As a result, a new logo – a thistle containing a rugby ball – was designed in October 1990 by graphic designer Chic Harper. This was launched on Thursday 22 November at Murrayfield, Edinburgh with a £1M sponsorship deal with Umbro. The new logo was first worn on the nation's shirts at Parc des Princes, Paris on Saturday 19 January 1991 with the name 'Scottish Rugby Union' below the thistle. This was soon replaced with just 'Scottish Rugby'. In recent times, the wording has been dropped altogether to leave only the thistle as the symbol of the Scottish team. The second World Cup took place in
1991 with matches shared between the Five Nations. Scotland won their pool, though the game against Ireland was close, and then beat Western Samoa in the quarter-final. They lost to England in the semi-final held at Murrayfield to a Rob Andrew drop goal. In the third place play-off they were beaten by New Zealand. Scotland went through 1994 without a single win, but bounced back in 1995 to win their first three Five Nations matches. This run of wins included a 23–21 win away against France, courtesy of a last minute try and conversion by Gavin Hastings. Scotland won the last-ever Five Nations Championship in 1999 with a last minute win by Wales over England. However, in the 1999 World Cup they suffered a quarter-final defeat to New Zealand.
2000–2008 Scotland endured a torrid Six Nations in 2000, losing their first four straight games. but won the final game against England 19–13 under captain
Andy Nicol. Australian coach
Matt Williams became the first foreigner to coach Scotland in 2003. However his tenure was both controversial and unsuccessful, marred by a string of poor results and fall-outs with coaches and players. In 2004 Williams attempted to introduce a controversial "Fortress Scotland" policy, whereby only those currently playing in Scotland were eligible to play in the national team. Meanwhile, the
Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) came under new management, chief executive
Phil Anderton (known as 'Firework Phil' for his pre-match entertainment spectacles) was leading the way back to financial solvency and implementing major reforms to reverse the decline of the game in
Scotland, but he resigned in January 2005 after his boss David Mackay was forced to resign by the SRU's general committee. By April 2005, Scotland had won only three out of 17 matches under Williams.
Frank Hadden, the head coach of
Edinburgh Gunners, was appointed interim coach for the 2005 summer internationals against the
Barbarians and
Romania, winning both. On 15 September 2005, he was appointed national coach of the Scotland team. and this was the first time since 1999 that they had beaten France. Scotland also beat England 18–12 at home at Murrayfield to reclaim the
Calcutta Cup. In the
2006 Autumn internationals Scotland won two of three fixtures. They convincingly beat
Romania and put up a solid first half performance against the
Pacific Islanders. In the final match against
Australia, Scotland failed to impress, with Australia winning 44–15. In 2007, Scotland became the first Six Nations team to lose at home to Italy, 17–37. This was
Italy's biggest ever victory over Scotland, home or away. Later that year, the side travelled to France for the 2007 Rugby World Cup. They made their way through their group and reached the quarter finals, where they were knocked out by Argentina. Scotland opened their 2008 Six Nations campaign losing 27–6 to France at home. Pressure on Frank Hadden started to intensify after Scotland lost to Wales and then to Ireland. They then defeated England in the Calcutta Cup with a 15–9 victory before succumbing to Italy, avoiding the wooden spoon only on scoring difference. They then toured Argentina in the summer to play two tests against Argentina. They lost the first test 21–15, but won the second 26–14.
2009–present In a dismal 2009 Six Nations campaign, Scotland won just one match for a second consecutive year (against Italy) and thus, on 2 April 2009 Frank Hadden resigned as head coach of the national side. On 4 June 2009,
ex-England,
Edinburgh and
Bath coach
Andy Robinson was named head coach in time for the
2009 Autumn Internationals. Scotland's form picked up with a 23–10 victory over
Fiji and a memorable 9–8 win against
Australia (the first win over the Wallabies for 27 years) at Murrayfield. In the
2010 Six Nations Scotland lost against France, Wales and Italy before drawing with England. Against Ireland, in the final rugby match at
Croke Park, Scotland gained their only win of the tournament 23–20 with a last-minute penalty by
Dan Parks, denying the Irish the Triple Crown and assuring they themselves would avoid the wooden spoon. That
summer, Scotland toured Argentina and recorded their first ever away series victory, beating the Pumas in both tests, 24–16 and 13–9. In the Autumn Internationals of 2010, Scotland lost heavily against New Zealand before recording victories against South Africa, 21–17, and Samoa, 19–16. Scotland had a poor showing in the
2011 Six Nations, winning just one match, a 21–8 victory over Italy. In the
2011 Rugby World Cup, Scotland struggled to beat Romania 34–24 and Georgia 15–6, before losing 13–12 to Argentina. Needing a win going into their final match against England in Auckland, they led 12–3 with a quarter of the game to go, only to lose out to a Chris Ashton try, going down 16–12. This was the first time Scotland had been knocked out in the group stages of the Rugby World Cup. Scotland's performance was weak during the
2012 Six Nations, picking up the wooden spoon and being whitewashed, despite promising moments, and falling to 12th, Scotland's lowest ever in the IRB rankings. Even after this whitewash, Scotland defeated
Australia 9–6 in the
2012 Scotland rugby union tour of Australia, Fiji and Samoa. This was Scotland's first win in Australia since 1982 and the first time in 30 years that Scotland defeated Australia more than once in a row. Scotland also recorded away wins over both Fiji and Samoa. During Scotland's 2012 Autumn Tests they suffered a series of defeats, versus the
All Blacks, South Africa and most notably Tonga, which caused head coach
Andy Robinson to resign.
Scott Johnson became interim head coach for the team in December 2012. During the
2013 Six Nations, Scotland won their matches against Italy and Ireland to finish third, their best finish in the competition since 2006. On 3 May 2013, Johnson was named the first ever Director of Rugby for
Scotland responsible for overseeing all rugby in the nation. On 27 May 2013, it was announced that
Vern Cotter would become head coach of Scotland, but the SRU had to wait until 2014 as club
Clermont failed to reach an agreement with the SRU to release Cotter a year early from his contract. Scotland had a dismal
2014 Six Nations campaign; managing only one win (away in Italy), finishing second bottom and defeated 51–3 by Wales in the final match. Vern Cotter finally assumed his role as head coach, and in June of the same year Scotland won three tests against
the top teams of the Americas, before being hammered by South Africa 55–6. The three autumn tests held at Murrayfield during November yielded wins over Argentina and Tonga, and a narrow defeat against New Zealand. The test against Tonga took place at
Rugby Park,
Kilmarnock, and was the first Rugby Union international to be played on an
artificial surface. However, Scotland displayed improved performances in their World Cup warm-up games over the summer, with two wins over Italy and narrow defeats away in Ireland and France. Scotland played well at the
2015 Rugby World Cup in England; qualifying from their group by beating Japan, USA and Samoa, although they lost to South Africa. Scotland played Australia in the quarter-finals, and with 30 seconds remaining led 34–32. However, referee
Craig Joubert then awarded the Wallabies a highly controversial penalty, later judged by the game's ruling body to be incorrect, which
Bernard Foley scored to give Australia victory. Scotland lost their first two games in the
2016 Six Nations Championship, extending their losing streak in the Six Nations to nine matches, their worst run in the championship since the 1950s. The Scots finally ended their losing run with a 36–20 win over Italy in Rome;
John Barclay,
John Hardie and
Tommy Seymour all scoring tries. Scotland followed that win up with a victory over France at Murrayfield;
Stuart Hogg,
Duncan Taylor and
Tim Visser scoring tries in a 29–18 win. It was Scotland's first victory over France since 2006, and also ended a 10 match losing streak against
Les Bleus. Scotland had a successful
tour of Japan in June (winning both test matches), and during the
Autumn Internationals recorded a third consecutive win against Argentina (their seventh recognised win overall against the Pumas). In the
2017 Six Nations, Scotland saw a marked improvement in performance with three home wins and two away defeats. This was
Vern Cotter's last tournament as head coach of Scotland, despite them also beating Australia 24–19 on the summer tour of the Southern Hemisphere. In their first 6Ns game, Scotland went in with confidence to win their first opening match for eleven years against Ireland in a close match at
Murrayfield Stadium. This followed with a defeat in Paris to France. Scotland secured a win over Wales in their third game, Scotland's first since 2007. In the eagerly anticipated
Calcutta Cup tie against England at Twickenham, however, Scotland were thrashed 61–21. This was a record defeat against the English, and a result which ended their hopes of winning the Six Nations.
Gregor Townsend took over as head coach in June 2017. His first fixture as head coach was against Italy in Singapore where Scotland won 34–13. A week later Scotland defeated Australia 24–19 in Sydney, the second time in a row Scotland had won on Australian soil. The victory was made more notable by the list of absentees, such as
Stuart Hogg and
Grieg Laidlaw, who were in New Zealand on Lions' duty. The tour was concluded by a 27–22 loss to Fiji in Suva. Victory over Samoa in November 2017 was followed by a breathtaking performance against New Zealand at a sold-out Murrayfield. Tries from Jonny Gray and Huw Jones brought Scotland to 17–22 with barely a minute to go, but it took a superb cover tackle from the All Blacks fly-half
Beauden Barrett to prevent
Stuart Hogg from scoring a winning try. A week later Scotland registered a record win over the Wallabies, who played with 14 men for the majority of the game after Kepu's dismissal, inflicting eight tries on the visitors in what was the Australian hooker
Stephen Moore's final international game. Scotland won 53–24, their biggest ever margin of victory over Australia. In the
2019 Rugby World Cup, Scotland took an early exit with losses to both Ireland and the hosts. Scotland did however score ninety-five unanswered points across two wins against Samoa and Russia. On 6 February 2021, Scotland won their first game of that year's Six Nations tournament, defeating England 6 – 11 at
Twickenham for the first time since 1983 and securing the Calcutta Cup. On 13 February they lost their next match, against Wales, 25–24 at Murrayfield. In 2024 the Scotland Rugby Men's Team featured in a Netflix documentary Six Nations: Full Contact. == Thistle and the anthem ==