Scotland welcome Italy to Murrayfield in their opening fixture, looking to avenge defeat at the hands of the Azzuri last year. Can they get their campaign off to a winning start and finally mount a title challenge…?!
Below shows the predictions from the Rugby4Cast’s Algorithm for the opening weekend of the Six Nations. It has Scotland to (relatively) comfortably get a win over the Italians at home. Is this fair?

Broadly speaking, the predictions model works off a proprietary rankings system (which you can see on the various events pages), but it also looks at other things like rest periods, home advantage and scoring patterns in historical games – both in head to head matches and overall – to work out an expected score for each team based on location and current ranking.
More accurately speaking, this means that each predicted score is actually a metric to describe the relative historical strength of the two teams, based on their performances over previous years. However, we think it is more fun to think of them as predictions. At the very least, it certainly serves to provoke the trolls lurking online. You know who you are … !
You can check out the rest predictions and the betting analysis below.
Scotland v Italy in Edinburgh
Although the Italians beat Scotland in last years Six Nations, that was in Rome. And given this years fixture is in Edinburgh, the Algo is backing Scotland to get the job done. Italy haven’t won in Scotland for 10 years, losing there on average by 20 points.

Scotland usually win comfortably against Italy in Murrayfield, and the Algo seems to think that will continue. As a Scot however, the nerves are already starting to rise … 😬
Italy’s 2024
Italy had a reasonable 2024 by their standards winning 5 of their 11 matches and 1 draw. They had a great Six Nations last year – winning 2 matches against Scotland and Wales, and also drawing against France in Lille.
They had a reasonable Summer and Autumn as well, getting some good wins – and pushing the All Blacks close in Turin – but also interspersed with some bad losses – conceding 50 against Argentina for example.

What do the bookies say?
The bookies are bullish on Scotland. An average of the major bookies out there gives them just a 94% chance of winning – along with a 10% chance of an Italian win (welcome to the bookies overround everyone!).

What this means is that this match – from a betting perspective – is not really worth a look. The best odds being offered on a Scottish win are 1.28, which is a fairly poor return for your money, and whilst the Italian odds of 11 at vBet are technically ‘value’ – it is quite a high risk bet, and not one I would be placing the mortgage on!
If you are really adventurous then the draw odds of 51 available on the Betfair Exchange also look good, but again I wouldn’t be going big there.
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