Scotland v France

France's welcome to the Five Nations was a 27-point lesson in Scottish hospitality.

France's admission to the Five Nations Championship in 1910 brought them to Edinburgh for their first ever meeting with Scotland. The hosts were ruthless, winning 27-0 at Inverleith, Scotland's home ground before Murrayfield was built. It was a bruising introduction for Les Bleus, who lost all four of their matches in that inaugural championship campaign.

A Grand Slam sealed and a new ground opened; Murrayfield announced itself in the grandest style possible.

Scotland's new home at Murrayfield hosted its first international in 1925, a 14-11 victory over England that sealed Scotland's first ever Grand Slam. France visited the new ground the following year, and the fixture gained a permanent Edinburgh home that would grow into one of rugby's great stadiums. The move from Inverleith gave Scotland a venue worthy of the growing international game.

Banned for professionalism and brutality, France spent sixteen years in exile before the Five Nations welcomed them back.

Allegations of professionalism and violent play led to France's expulsion from the Five Nations in 1931. The fixture between Scotland and France was suspended, and would not resume until after the Second World War. France spent the wilderness years playing against other nations outside the championship, and the enforced absence lasted until 1947 when they were readmitted to the tournament.

France ended decades of Scottish dominance at Murrayfield in 1951, winning 14-12 in a match that signalled a new balance of power.

After decades of Scottish dominance in the fixture, France finally won at Murrayfield in 1951, taking the match 14-12. It marked a turning point in the rivalry. French rugby was maturing rapidly in the post-war era, and their flair and physicality began to shift the balance of power. By the late 1950s, France were genuine championship contenders.

Scotland's pack dismantled a French side expected to clinch a clean sweep; Jim Calder's try did the rest.

In one of the great Murrayfield upsets, Scotland beat France 21-12 in 1984 to deny Les Bleus a Grand Slam. Jim Calder's try proved decisive in a match where Scotland's pack dominated a French side widely expected to complete a clean sweep. It was a result that underlined the fixture's capacity for surprise and cemented Murrayfield's reputation as a fortress.

Money and muscle shifted the balance; France's vast club infrastructure gave them an advantage Scotland's smaller playing base simply could not counter.

Rugby union turned professional in 1995, and the Scotland v France fixture evolved with it. Higher fitness levels, tactical sophistication, and the influx of money into French club rugby began to tilt the balance further towards Les Bleus. France's depth of squad, drawn from a powerful domestic league, gave them an edge that Scotland, with a smaller playing base, found increasingly difficult to match.

Six became the magic number, but Scotland and France kept the stakes just as sharp.

Italy's admission to the championship in 2000 expanded the tournament to six teams and added an extra round of fixtures. For Scotland and France, the broader competition meant that their biennial meetings carried different permutations each year. The fixture retained its edge, though, with both sides knowing that a win against the other could make or break a championship campaign.

Seven centuries of friendship, finally given a trophy to call its own.

In 2018, the Auld Alliance Trophy was created to honour the historic bond between Scotland and France that dates back to 1295. The trophy is contested each time the two nations meet in the Six Nations, giving the fixture its own silverware and a formal nod to centuries of shared history. France won the inaugural contest, but the trophy has added a layer of meaning to an already compelling rivalry.

Twenty-two years of Scottish dominance at Murrayfield, ended in a single afternoon by Dupont and Galthié's reborn France.

France's 23-27 victory at Murrayfield in the 2021 Six Nations ended a remarkable drought. Scotland had won every home fixture against France since 1999, a run that had become one of the championship's most stubborn streaks. Fabien Galthié's resurgent France side, built around the brilliance of Antoine Dupont, broke the spell on their way to a title challenge that signalled their return to the top tier of world rugby.

France hold a 61-41 advantage across 105 Tests, though Scotland's Murrayfield record makes for far more competitive reading.

As the fixture passes its 105th Test match, France lead the overall head-to-head record with 61 wins to Scotland's 41, with 3 draws. Yet the statistics only tell part of the story. At Murrayfield, Scotland's record is far more competitive, and the Edinburgh crowd remains one of the most passionate in world rugby. With both nations investing heavily in their development pathways, the rivalry shows no sign of losing its intensity.