Taylor in for Scott in Scotland’s only change for Wales

“Why? In case it rains”.

Cotter went on to elaborate.

“It’s great to be able to name an unchanged side, with Dan coming through, fit and ready to play”, he said. “Matt decelerated and felt something in his thigh”, he said. “He went for a scan this morning and it’s a slight tear”.

“But ultimately it comes down to rugby and they’re a quality side and we know that we’re going to have to be better than we were last week to get a result”.

The only other change to the match-day 23 sees experienced Glasgow wing Sean Lamont take Taylor’s place among the replacements.

The Scots will be desperate to kickstart their campaign in Cardiff after losing 15-9 to the Auld Enemy at Murrayfield last weekend. Here’s all you need to know ahead of the match in the Welsh capital…

Wales lock Alun Wyn Jones says the tumultuous final day of the 2015 Six Nations heralded the beginning of an era of more expansive rugby in the competition. Unfortunately they found a way to win. We just have to get the balance in attack right. Hopefully, he stays injury-free for as long as possible.

Wales are a team comfortable with the familiar and Scotland need to take them outside that. Last week Scotland got after George Ford and managed to get him at the bottom of a couple of rucks, but just as the tactic was working they laid off him. But our scrum is looking forward to the challenge.

Cotter said: “In that game there was a red card and previous year at home there was a yellow card”.

“The most important thing for us is winning”, said the Scotland No8 David Denton.

Scotland haven’t tasted victory in Cardiff since 2002.

The bid to avoid a successive Wooden Spoon will become harder if Scotland fail to break a Six Nations losing habit against Wales as the record run of consecutive defeats now stretches to eight games. But I was dropped for the following game… and the next game… and the one after that as Wales went on to win the Grand Slam.

Wales were privately seething at having Gatland’s integrity brought into question, though reluctant to get into a private spat with Schmidt given the pair may have to work together with the British & Irish Lions next year.

“From the scrum point of view the four props haven’t changed from the last matchday squad”, added the 33-year-old. We lost by six points against England.

“And we want to keep improving”. He has got his own strengths, and we saw that on Sunday. “Discipline wise, we only gave away nine penalties last week, England gave away 12”. With Sam Warburton’s strength over the ball, their back row is also incredibly competitive at the breakdown and, in Taulupe Faletau and Justin Tipuric, they have a mix of power and guile in their ball-carrying and link play. Here we look at how the two sides match up.