England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

have been playing each other at

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

since 1871 when Scotland beat England in the first ever rugby union international. A total of 140 matches have been played, with England having won 76 times, Scotland 45 times and nineteen matches have been drawn. Apart from fixtures played in the Home/Five/Six Nations Championship competitions, two games have been played at the

Rugby World Cup The Rugby World Cup is a men's rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams. The tournament is administered by World Rugby, the sport's international governing body. The winners are awarded the Webb ...

: the 1991 Semi-final and the 2011 Pool B fixture, both of which England were victorious. The sides also met in

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses ( February 10, and August 6). The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history. Events J ...

in a match to commemorate the centenary of the first match between the sides, which Scotland were victorious in both fixtures. The 1938 Calcutta Cup match was the first live televised rugby international. It was broadcast by

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

. The first two international sides to play against each other, the England–Scotland fixture is the second most-played international rugby union match as of 2022. Behind the Australia–New Zealand rivalry by some thirty-plus matches (not including XV results), it is one match ahead of the England–Ireland match-up and the Ireland–Scotland match-up.

Calcutta Cup

The teams have consistently been competing for the

Calcutta Cup The Calcutta Cup is the trophy awarded to the winner of the rugby match between England and Scotland played annually in the Six Nations Championship. Like the match itself (England–Scotland), the Calcutta Cup is the oldest trophy contested be ...

annually since

1879 Events January–March * January 1 – The Specie Resumption Act takes effect. The United States Note is valued the same as gold, for the first time since the American Civil War. * January 11 – The Anglo-Zulu War begins. * Janu ...

, or their ninth match-up together. Used in a one-off match, the Cup first took part in the

Home Nations Home Nations is a collective term with one of two meanings depending on context. Politically it means the nations of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In sport, if a sport is g ...

friendlies of the

1870s The 1870s (pronounced "eighteen-seventies") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1870, and ended on December 31, 1879. The trends of the previous decade continued into this one, as new empires, imperialism and militar ...

and early '80s. It is now one trophy of many used between the six teams that make up the

Six Nations Championship The Six Nations Championship (known as the Guinness Six Nations for sponsorship reasons) is an annual international men's rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The current champions ar ...

Summary

Note: Summary below reflects test results by both teams.

Overall

Records

Note: Date shown in brackets indicates when the record was last set.

Results

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:England and Scotland England national rugby union team matches Scotland national rugby union team matches Rugby union rivalries in England Rugby union rivalries in Scotland England–Scotland relations Six Nations Championship