How Scotland can still win 2025 Six Nations: results needed from Ireland vs France & England this weekend

Scotland’s chances of winning the 2025 Six Nations title were dealt a major blow when they lost to Ireland at Murrayfield in round two and all but ended with their Calcutta Cup defeat at the hands of England last time out.

However, with two rounds of matches to go, there is still a route to the trophy for Gregor Townsend’s side but it’s very much out of their own hands and would require a very specific run of results across all the remaining matches to happen. There are six fixtures left in the competition and every single one of them need to go the right way for the Scots to win the title for the first time since it was known as the Five Nations.

It starts this weekend where reigning champions Ireland host France, Scotland welcome Wales to Murrayfield and England host Italy at Twickenham. Then, on Super Saturday later this month, it’s Italy vs Ireland, Wales vs England and France vs Scotland. Here are the results Scotland need from each of those matches in order to win the 2025 Six Nations:

Ireland vs France

It begins, and potentially ends in Dublin. A bonus point win for Ireland and it then becomes mathematically impossible for Scotland to win the Six Nations.

What Scotland need from this game is for France to win the match and for neither team to pick up a bonus point. If that happens then France would go top of the table on 15 points and Ireland would remain on 14 points. Here is how the table would look:

1. France - 15 pts - (P4, W3, D0, L1)
2. Ireland - 14pts - (P4, W3, D0, L1)
3. England - 10pts - (P3, W2, D0, L1)
4. Scotland - 6pts - (P3, W1, D0, L2)
5. Italy - 4pts - (P3, W1, D0, L2)
6. Wales - 1pt - (P3, W0, D0, L3)

Scotland vs Wales

Pretty straightforward here, Scotland need a bonus point win plain and simple. A win without a bonus point still keeps them mathematically in it but the problem is France have a massive points difference advantage that is near enough insurmountable.

France have +91 to Scotland’s -3 ahead of round four so it really does need to be a bonus point win against the Welsh for Gregor Townsend’s side. That would move them on to 11 points and the table would look like this (assuming Wales don’t pick up a bonus point in defeat):

1. France - 15 pts - (P4, W3, D0, L1)
2. Ireland - 14pts - (P4, W3, D0, L1)
3. England - 10pts - (P3, W2, D0, L1)
4. Scotland - 11pts - (P4, W2, D0, L2)
5. Italy - 4pts - (P3, W1, D0, L2)
6. Wales - 1pt - (P4, W0, D0, L3)

England vs Italy

Things start to get a bit complicated now so stick with us. It doesn’t really matter if England win this one but it would be preferable that they do not and that Italy are able to spring an upset.

Scotland need to win all their remaining games anyway so when it comes to England they have two chances for either Wales or Italy to do them a favour. The Italians don’t really factor in to it as even a bonus point win for them wouldn’t take them above Scotland if they get the result they need the day before so let’s just say England win this one with a bonus point and Italy get nothing out of the game. The table looks like this at the end of round four:

1. France - 15 pts - (P4, W3, D0, L1)
2. England - 15pts - (P4, W3, D0, L1)
3. Ireland - 14pts - (P4, W3, D0, L1)
4. Scotland - 11pts - (P4, W2, D0, L2)
5. Italy - 4pts - (P4, W1, D0, L3)
6. Wales - 1pt - (P4, W0, D0, L3)

Italy vs Ireland

You should be starting to see a clear route to the trophy for Scotland now but there is a long, long way to go. First of all, the big one, Italy obviously need to win this game and with how good Ireland are the probability of them losing back-to-back matches feels very unlikely and any win for Ireland puts their points total beyond what Scotland could catch.

We now need to talk about the bonus points system and points differences a bit more. If Ireland do lose you’d expect them to pick up at least one bonus point which would not matter. If they picked up two bonus points it makes things a bit more complicated but in this situation they have lost two games in a row (one by seven points or less of course) so their current points difference of +28 has taken a decent hit and Scotland could very well close that gap.

Let’s just say that Ireland do pick up a losing bonus point in their defeat to Italy, which is highly likely if they are beaten. Then the table looks like this (assuming England did not overturn their points difference and Italy do not pick up a bonus point):

1. France - 15 pts - (P4, W3, D0, L1)
2. Ireland - 15pts - (P5, W3, D0, L2)
3. England - 15pts - (P4, W3, D0, L1)
4. Scotland - 11pts - (P4, W2, D0, L2)
5. Italy - 8pts - (P5, W2, D0, L3)
6. Wales - 1pt - (P4, W0, D0, L3)

Wales vs England

If Italy beat England in round four then this game becomes far less important. If England do win as expected though and do pick up a bonus point then Scotland need the Welsh to win here and to deny England ideally both but certainly one bonus point in defeat.

The Wales and Italy results are interchangeable and, in an ideal scenario, we see Steve Borthwick’s side lose both. Essentially though it boils down to England taking a maximum of six points from their remaining two games.

If they get as many as six then Scotland should have a better points difference after winning their last two but ideally we want them to get five or less just to avoid it coming down to that. Seven points or more for England and Scotland can’t catch them. This is how the table now looks in our hypothetical world if they lose to Wales with neither side picking up any bonus points:

1. France - 15 pts - (P4, W3, D0, L1)
2. Ireland - 15pts - (P5, W3, D0, L2)
3. England - 15pts - (P5, W3, D0, L2)
4. Scotland - 11pts - (P4, W2, D0, L2)
5. Italy - 8pts - (P5, W2, D0, L3)
6. Wales - 5pt - (P5, W1, D0, L4)

France vs Scotland

If all of that somehow happens then Scotland’s fate is back in their own hands but they still have probably the toughest part of this mountain to climb. They must beat France in Paris, pick up a try scoring bonus point, and deny the French both the losing bonus point and a try scoring bonus point as just one would surely be enough for them to win the trophy.

By beating Ireland in round four France would have added to their massive +91 points difference. Let’s say they beat Ireland by nine points to make that a nice round +100 then Scotland (currently on -3) need to win their two remaining games by over a combined century of points and even we aren’t entertaining as implausible a scenario as that.

So that’s everything you need to know, feeling confident? Here is how the table would look if all six remaining results in the 2025 Six Nations Championship finish as we have laid out:

1. Scotland - 16pts - (P5, W3, D0, L2)
2. France - 15 pts - (P5, W3, D0, L1)
3. Ireland - 15pts - (P5, W3, D0, L2)
4. England - 15pts - (P5, W3, D0, L2)
5. Italy - 8pts - (P5, W2, D0, L3)
6. Wales - 5pt - (P5, W1, D0, L4)

Read more: Six Nations 2025 Round Four predictions including Ireland vs France and Scotland vs Wales