SCOTLAND legend Gavin Hastings believes England have yet to play at their best in this season’s Six Nations Championship - and hopes they do not finally turn on the style in today’s Calcutta Cup match at Twickenham.

The former full-back captained the Scots when they beat the English in the 1990 Grand Slam decider at Murrayfield, but lost out on the same prize five years later when the match was played in London. In fact, it was way back in 1983 - three years before Hastings made his debut - that Scotland last won at Twickenham.

Victory will give the visitors the Triple Crown as well as keeping their Championship hopes alive. Hastings has been impressed by the way Vern Cotter’s team have played so far, with home wins against Ireland and Wales as well as a narrow loss in Paris. But he knows from bitter experience how tough it is to play against England on home ground, and thinks that Scotland might have to up their game again if they are going to pull off a historic victory.

“Scotland have played some very exciting rugby,” he said. “They’ve done well, and it’s been wonderful to see Murrayfield back at its noisy best and reminiscent of all the good days.

“I do worry, however - it strikes me that England are a long way from playing their best rugby. And at some stage they are going to play some very good rugby. If they were to turn on their best rugby on Saturday, my worry is can Scotland cope?

“I hope that Scotland will play bloody well, and hope they will have a victory. But we have to be very realistic about that, given our record at Twickenham. Given the fact that England have not played well, and the fact that if England do play well, where will Scotland be?”

England play a more patient style than the French, but their plan for the match looks similar to France’s in the sense that they will try to steamroller Scotland. They have a massive starting back row, and once that trio has done some softening-up work, their hope is that they can bring Billy Vunipola off the bench to finish things off.

“The England team always seem to be massive,” Hastings added. “With Vunipola in the squad, it’s a fair indication of what they want to do: smash us up front and just get on.”

Although he never beat England at Twickenham, Hastings does not think there is any hoodoo about the ground from a Scottish point of view. Instead, he simply believes Scotland have not been good enough on the day, including that match 22 years ago.

“We were going for the Grand Slam, and certainly went down there thinking we were good enough to win. But at the end of the day we didn’t play well, and it’s probably fair to say we’ve never really played well enough.

“I can’t think of any games where we’ve ever really looked like winning. My first game in 1987 - we should have won that game, it was a disaster - then we drew in 1989. I don’t think we’ve come close, really, to winning. We’ve played well, -ish, but that’s it.

“We’ve always been pretty soundly beaten at Twickenham - just not been good enough to win down there. You could ask why is that? England are a bloody good side first and foremost.”

“I don’t think I felt intimidated whenever I played there. It’s just a tough place to play. It’s a big old stadium and there are a lot more English supporters there than Scottish supporters.”

Hastings played host to Warren Gatland this week when the British and Irish Lions head coach visited the Scotland training camp. On current form, there should be more Scots in the Lions touring party to New Zealand than last time, when only three were originally selected, but Hastings warned that all the contenders still have a lot of work to do before they can be sure of a seat on that plane.

“I think possibly five or six [Scots are contenders] at this point in time. But if we don’t do all that well in the last two games, and these five or six players don’t play all that well, then I don’t think there’s any guarantees.

“At the end of the day, Scotland have got two more matches in the Six Nations, and they know if the team are successful then they’re going to have a far greater representation. I think they’ve done very well so far, but if they were to get smashed on Saturday and didn’t do very well against Italy, then you could argue that all the good work has been undone. If that’s reflected in not many guys going, well you don’t get selected on the basis of two and a half decent performances out of five.”

And however many Scots end up in the Lions team, Hastings believes that when it comes to planning how to beat the All Blacks, Gatland’s emphasis will have to be on attack. “When you rely on defence to win games, it seems to me to be incomplete. That’s not what sport is all about, is it?

"Surely you have to concentrate on the positive aspect. I know defence is important, but . . . .

“I remember Bill Shankly saying ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, if a team doesn’t score a goal, they’re unlikely to win the match’. Unless we score tries, we’re not going to beat the All Blacks.”