Wales end 66-game streak as Sherratt sticks with same team for Scotland

Wales will field an unchanged XV for the first time in 66 Tests on Saturday when they take on Scotland at Murrayfield after Matt Sherratt stuck with the starting lineup that gave a scare to the Six Nations title favourites, Ireland, in the last round.

The interim head coach, Sherratt, said he was “keen to let them go again” and the game will mark the first time since 2019 that Wales have put out the same XV.

“Firstly, I thought the performance was decent,” Sherratt said of the Ireland game. “I thought it was as cohesive as we could ask for with the amount of preparation time we had. It’s a reward for that really. Probably across the board there were some really good performances. I was keen to let them go again.

“The challenge the group set themselves on Monday was that they are pleased with the performance, but not the result, because they are all competitors. Can we do the same again and build a little bit more on top of that? The passion and effort was first rate. It is matching that as a minimum, but trying to build our game slowly.”

The Edinburgh encounter is Sherratt’s penultimate match in charge of Wales before he resumes duties as Cardiff head coach after taking over from Warren Gatland on a temporary basis. Wales have lost their past 15 Tests, but the quality of performance in going down 27-18 to Ireland offered a brighter outlook before their remaining Six Nations appointments with Scotland and England. Their recent Murrayfield record against Scotland is impressive, having won on six of the past eight visits to Edinburgh.

Sherratt said: “I am not naive. I knew there would be an emotional response for Ireland. We’ve got England at home next week, last one in the Six Nations. That one looks after itself. This week for me was always going to be the one that was the test of the squad. We are going away and it is two weeks after the Ireland game. But what I sense from the players pretty early on is there is a determination to lift that emotion from the Principality Stadium and take it to Murrayfield.”

Two switches among the replacements mean returns for the former captain Dewi Lake, with the hooker recently recalled to the squad after recovering from biceps surgery, and the Cardiff prop Keiron Assiratti.

Scotland, meanwhile, welcome back Darcy Graham after the Edinburgh wing missed the 16-15 defeat against England due to a concussion in the home defeat by Ireland almost four weeks ago. Graham passed his head injury assessment before the match at Twickenham on 22 February but Scotland coaches and medics opted to take a precautionary approach and give him more time to ensure he was fully recovered given the severity of his collision with his teammate Finn Russell. Having trained this week, the 27-year-old – Scotland’s second-highest try-scorer of all time – has been selected to start against Wales in place of Kyle Rowe in the only change to the side that started the Calcutta Cup match.

The head coach, Gregor Townsend, reverts to a 5-3 bench after going with a 6-2 split against England, with the forward Sam Skinner and the back Jamie Dobie dropping out of the 23, and the scrum-half George Horne joining Rowe on the bench.

Scotland, aiming to recover from back-to-back championship defeats against Ireland and England, are aiming to make it three wins in a row over Wales for the first time in the Six Nations era.