Wales can only dream of glory decade and Phil Bennett’s 1977 Murrayfield try | Paul Rees

It is the 40th anniversary next month of one of Wales’s most celebrated tries and one of the championship’s best. It was scored by Phil Bennett at Murrayfield in 1977 at the end of the move started by Gerald Davies in his own 22 that left 10 defenders scattered on the turf.

It was a scintillating example of how Wales strutted in that decade of three grand slams, five triple crowns and five outright titles, but if there is to be a similar score at Murrayfield on Saturday it is more likely to be contrived by the home side who, after years when penalties were their staple diet, are serving up tries again.

Wales, their captain Alun Wyn Jones said, have spent the week preparing for the unexpected, a nod to Scotland’s improvisation, especially from set pieces. A side that scored only four tries in the 2012 and 2014 campaigns has five after the first two rounds, on course to beat their highest tally of 11 that they accumulated last year.

Wales have talked about expansion and their style is evolving, but at the end of a week when Storm Doris has battered the north, they will be looking to freeze Scotland’s possession, competing hard at the breakdown to disrupt the supply line between the half-backs, Ali Price and Finn Russell, and using the scrum as a means to win penalties and establish territory.

Scotland have only twice won two of their opening three matches in the Six Nations, and only once when Italy were not among the victims. They have never, since five became six in 2000, scored more tries than they have conceded in a campaign but going into the weekend their tally stands at 5-4.

This is a pivotal match for a side that has become used to finishing in the bottom half of the table. It is an opportunity to build on the victory over Ireland on the opening weekend, when flair took them into a 21-5 lead and dogged determination delivered victory in the final minutes after they had fallen behind. However, Scotland are in the unfamiliar position of having to deal with expectation.

Without their calmest head in Paris, Greig Laidlaw, they lacked emotional maturity after going 16-13 up in the second half, overdoing offloads and at times too excitable. The scrum-half and captain had been instrumental in Scotland regaining control against Ireland, but without him in Paris at the end after his first-half injury, they had no one to steer them home.

Scotland’s style of play has evolved partly through necessity because the set pieces do not provide a stable platform and they have learned to live off their wits. They have found Wales, who have not lost this fixture since 2007, too hard-nosed this decade and if the men in red are moving the ball more this season, they will not want to get into a broken play bunfight but exert control by dominating the breakdown in attack and defence, and dragging the home side into a structured game, as France eventually did.

Defeat would leave Wales out of title contention and forced to consider a rebuild they keep putting off. Evolution not revolution is their credo and their defeat to England was down in part to a continued failure to translate possession and pressure into tries.

In three halves of rugby this championship they have scored one try, a well-rehearsed move from a scrum. The only time they created in broken play was in the second half in Italy, but for the moment the future can wait.

Wales’s obsession with making sure they are in the top eight of the world rankings when the 2019 World Cup draw is made at the end of May, makes failure against Scotland unthinkable. It is three years since they lost to anyone other than England in the Six Nations, but they are not getting closer to the top two in the world rankings.

They have considerably more experience than Scotland, but they had that against England too and yet lost to a try that resulted from quick thinking and slick passing, qualities Wales used to have a surfeit of, as they showcased in the Bennett try 40 years ago.

If they are to win on Saturday, it is more likely to be through the boot of Leigh Halfpenny, the destroyer of Scotland on Wales’s last two visits to Murrayfield. Scotland have lost the crutch of goal-kicking accuracy through Laidlaw’s injury and the more open the match, the more comfortable they will be. It may come down to the tolerance threshold of the referee, Ireland’s John Lacey: the higher it is, the better for the hosts.