Six Nations tips: Wales vs Ireland and England vs Scotland preview and best bets

Six Nations betting tips

3pts Ireland (-11) on the first-half handicap at evens (Unibet, LiveScore Bet, BetMGM UK)

2pts Ireland (-23.5) on the match handicap at evens (bet365)

1pt Wales exactly two yellow cards at 100/30 (William Hill)

1pt Jack Conan anytime try-scorer at 12/5 (bet365)

3pts Scotland (+8.5) on the match handicap at 9/10 (General)

2pts Duhan van der Merwe anytime try-scorer at 15/8 (William Hill)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

Wales vs Ireland

• Saturday 1415 GMT
• Cardiff
• Live on BBC1

Wales and Ireland is one of the few fixtures in the Six Nations where the teams don’t play for a ‘rivalry’ trophy named after greats of the past. However, a good old-fashioned Triple Crown is on the line in Cardiff this weekend, as Ireland look to complete a hat-trick of wins against the other Home Unions, having disposed of England and Scotland in the first two rounds. The Triple Crown will take Ireland another step closer to a much more prized three-peat – of Six Nations titles – and all the chat in the build-up to the game is that all they have to do to win is turn up.

Ireland head to Cardiff with a side showing seven changes to the XV that took to the field for the 32-18 win over Scotland a fortnight ago, a scoreline that delivered for us two ways, Ireland winning by 8-14 points and Scotland scoring fewer than 20 points to round off a decent week on the tipping front. On first hearing the news that Simon Easterby had shaken things up, the expectation was that the Irish team he’d selected would perhaps reflect the weakness of the opposition, and lay further claim to the argument that Irish rugby supporters are now more entitled and arrogant than English rugby supporters.

However, the reality is that even with Caelan Doris and Ronan Kelleher out and Hugo Keenan rested from the 23 altogether, this weekend’s Ireland team still looks a formidable one, and one that should put Wales to the sword, even if the removal of Warren Gatland and the arrival of the popular Matt Sherratt brings about an uplift in spirits, as you normally hope will happen when there’s change of coach.

Whether a week is long enough for Wales’ interim head coach Matt Sherratt to bring about a marked improvement in Wales’ play is highly debatable. But, then again, he is starting from a low bar, especially on the attack side of things, which is his specialist area.

Wales have scored just 15 points across the first two rounds of the Championship – only three of them coming in the first half – which is their lowest total at this stage of the competition since it became the Six Nations in 2000. In the 22-15 defeat to Italy in Rome two weeks ago, they did manage a couple of tries, one scored by Aaron Wainwright and the other a penalty try – Wales’ most prolific method of scoring in the last 12 months, with the tally of five penalty tries being more than any individual player has managed, which says much about their lack of cutting edge.

Surely, by picking the right players in their right positions, Sherratt will bring about some improvement but this game isn’t about Wales can do, they are as close to a beaten team before the first all is kicked as you can get, especially with such a callow back three, but rather how ruthless Ireland can be, and how many points they’ll rack up.

Taking a look at the personnel involved, it’s hard to argue that Ireland will be any weaker for the changes. Joe McCarthy was a standout for Ireland in the 2024 Six Nations and would have been a regular starter this year had it not been for injury, while Jack Conan at the back of the scrum has been outstanding in two cameos off the bench. Mentioned as a Lions contender, Conan is unlucky that he competes for the same position as Ireland’s usual captain Doris and he’ll be fired up to make the most of this opportunity, which is why I consider him to be a decent candidate to get on the scoresheet, at 12/5, in a match where Ireland should score plenty of tries.

• CLICK HERE to back Conan anytime try-scorer with Sky Bet

As Wales have barely troubled the scoreboard in the first half of matches, scoring just three points before the break in this year’s Championship and an average of five first-half points across the last two Six Nations combined, covering off a -11-point first-half handicap should be well within Ireland’s reach, as well as 23.5 points over the full 80 minutes.

The pressure-game that Ireland will put an under-powered Wales under in the battle for territory will inevitably lead to penalties being given away, and potentially cards, too. Wales lost two men to the sin-bin against Italy and it’s easy to envisage that happening again as they try all means to stop Ireland, legal or otherwise.

• CLICK HERE to back Ireland (-11) on the first-half handicap with Sky Bet
• CLICK HERE to back Ireland (-23.5) on the match handicap with Sky Bet

Like the respective interim coaches, the match referee is an Englishman. Christophe Ridley has been on the scene for a good while now but he’s usually a flag carrier in the Six Nations not the man in the middle, so it’ll be interesting to see how he handles the occasion. In his only Championship game as referee, France’s 13-13 draw with Italy, he issued a red card to Les Bleus centre Jonathan Danty. If Wales lose any players for any length of time, it could get messy.

England vs Scotland

• Saturday 1645 GMT
• Twickenham
• Live on ITV1

England and Scotland lock horns for the 143rd time in international rugby with the marauders from the north chasing an unprecedented fifth straight win against the Auld Enemy.

England seem the bring the best out in Scotland, and in particular their talisman Finn Russell. So the news that the playmaker has been passed fit will come as a huge confidence boost to a side that needs to pick themselves up after losing tamely to Ireland in round two.

In the 25 Six Nations matches played between the two oldest of rivals, Russell has played in nine of them and Scotland have won five and drawn another when he has been on the pitch. However, in the games without him, Scotland’s win percentage goes down from 56% to just 19%.

Russell needs a big game otherwise he could easily slip behind the other Fin on the pitch, his opposite number Fin Smith, in the Lions pecking order. That may seem strange to say given that Bath’s million-pound man has over 80 caps and the Englishman with Scottish blood, Smith, is about to start just his second game of Test rugby at 10.

However, Russell disappointed against Italy and was slipshod against Ireland before the clash of heads with Darcy Graham cut short his afternoon. Russell just loves to take centre stage and backs himself whenever the heat is on and in the Calcutta Cup he normally delivers. He was Player of the Match in 2021, the game that started Scotland’s current run of supremacy over England, and he is due another big performance.

With Rusell pulling the strings, Scotland have more than a chance. The Dark Blues don’t have much in the way of momentum behind them after a hit-and-miss win against Italy and that all-too-inevitable loss against Ireland but if there is one game that’ll get them back on track, it’s England away. If Scotland were to win, it won’t be by many. In their four-game winning run the average margin has only been 5.5 points, so if you are going to back Scotland I’d recommend going with a margin of 1-7 points which is available at 5/1 with Paddy Power and Betfair Sportsbook.

England enter the game with confidence having stuck manfully to their task against a butter-fingered French team who, if truth be told, should have been two scores ahead and out of sight before Elliot Daly cruised under the posts to win the game for England, 26-25.

There are still question marks against England and the short odds on them winning don’t really reflect that. So while I expect England to finally get over the line against Scotland, backing Scotland on the handicap seems the most sensible approach even if the handicap line has narrowed by a point from 9.5 to 8.5 since the news came out that Russell was in the team. England very rarely win well against teams of their standing or better; their last 14 tests against other top 10 ranked nations have all been decided by a single digit margin.

• CLICK HERE to back Scotland (+8.5) on the match handicap with Sky Bet

Given the importance of the fixture to both sides, you’d ordinarily expect a tight, cagey affair. While I don’t expect it to be like the 38-38 free-for-all in 2019, I do expect each team to cross the try line on more than one occasion. England’s defence is still prone to leaving gaps at times and France cut them in the wide channels, which is where Scotland like to operate.

As such, I expected England’s nemesis Duhan van der Merwe to be odds on or thereabouts to get his name on the scoresheet seeing as he has scored more tries against England (six) than against any other team, yet William Hill have priced him at 15/8 in the anytime try-scorer market.

• CLICK HERE to back van der Merwe anytime try-scorer with Sky Bet

While it's tempting to be greedy and go for the 12/1 for him to score first or last, van der Merwe has tended to take a while to get into games of late. Taking a look at his last 10 tries for Scotland, 80% have been scored between the 20th and 50th minute. Only twice in the last seven games in which he has scored has van der Merwe got either the first or last try.

This is a pivotal game for both coaches. If England lose, the win over France will be seen as another false dawn like the narrow Ireland victory last year, with more pressure heaped on Steve Borthwick who has only won half of his games in charge. Gregor Townsend, meanwhile, has yet to get the best out of the current crop on a consistent basis. Once again, they entered this campaign as potential dark horses but like every other year, they are threatening to come up short. In the middle round of the Championship, one of the coaches will have the hump, and I expect it to be Townsend.

Posted at 0905 GMT on 21/02/25

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