Tom English, BBC Sport Scotland's chief sports writer

Sir Clive Woodward gave the Scottish forwards a blast in his newspaper column on Thursday, a withering assessment of their lack of power and how England's supposed monsters up front are going to take them to the cleaners. We shall see.

This ought to be grist to the mill of the Scottish pack. Ritchie is back in for his breakdown prowess. Scotland have been beaten on the floor in this championship and England's back-row could do it again if Scotland don't make massive improvements.

On his best days, Ritchie is belligerence personified. Saturday needs to be one of his better ones.

Fagerson being dropped from the back row is not a surprise. He has not hit fever pitch yet. Not even close. Maybe he'll find the fire off the bench.

Russell has been at the heart of Scotland's four in a row against England and it's a relief that he's made it through his concussion protocols.

He's not been himself so far in the Six Nations. Time for the genius to reappear.

Graham was always fighting an uphill battle to recover, but Rowe is a stellar replacement. He doesn't posses the game-breaking wonders of Graham, but he's a reliable and intelligent footballer.

Some thought that Gregor Brown would start this one given the lack of dynamism from the second-row against Ireland. That's still a worry in this team.

Not enough go-forward men up front. However, Pierre Schoeman's return does add some ball-carrying grunt.

From more than one source this week we've heard the Scottish forwards being all but written off. There's only one way to answer that.