Hello, this is the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and the Sunday Times where we are in Edinburgh.

Boots are on the ground north of the border ahead of a huge Calcutta Cup match on Saturday.

I'm Alfie Reynolds and alongside me in our hotel is Will Kelleher and Alex Lowe. All right, boys?

I've just been sleeted on. Is that the right way of phrasing it?

I was going to say snow boots on the ground. Yeah. Edinburgh. So I just got off the train. You flew up, Alex. I got the train. It was quite delayed because it's very wet everywhere around the UK, isn't it? And that was a choice. That was a choice. Yeah, yeah. No, no. No, I actually quite enjoy getting the train. And walked along Princess Street and got absolutely dumped on by sleet. It was like a proper welcome to Edinburgh.

Yeah, we've been steadily arriving throughout the day so I arrived I had a crack

of door not even crack of dawn like still dark flight early this morning so I've been up here killing time

and have just been wandering around Edinburgh getting rained on sporadically but it makes makes me feel like we'll get right stuck into it.

It's not going to be an easy weekend this, is it?

No.

Like whatever the form, whatever the situation Townsend and the Scotland team are in,

it's going to be, actually looks quite clear on Saturday,

but you just don't feel like ever coming up here in recent years

is easy and it's just going to be a cake walk, do you?

No, well, that's one of the things that struck me earlier when I was walking around was,

yeah, this feels like all those Calcutta Cup matches that I've watched on TV over the years

when England come up here and it's horrible and the weather's grim and the game

is a kind of fascinating but a reflection of that that it felt like that is what's in store. As you say on Saturday it is clearer but we'll see what... So far. Yeah, exactly. We'll see what kind of gets... Have you been to Murrayfield before? No, never. Have you never been? Okay. No, I've been to Edinburgh loads of times, so I've never actually been up here for the...

When was the first time you would have been, Alex?

The first time, I think been to Edinburgh loads of times, so I've never actually been up here for the... When was the first time you would have been, Alex?

The first time, I think, was Ben Young's England debut. Okay, 2010? 10, yeah? Coming on for Hugo? On the wing. Yeah, and that was filthy, and it has pretty much always been filthy. So I think my first one, obviously had been to Edinburgh, but first actual

Murrayfield was I used to write for the Scottish Daily Mail and as a sort of succumbent thing

...