Borderers Darcy Graham and Rory Sutherland retain places in Scottish match-day squad for last match of rugby’s 2025 Six Nations

That’s away to France in Paris this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 8pm, and right-winger Graham is in line for his fourth start of the tournament, with loosehead prop Sutherland being given his third role as a replacement.

Graham is joined in Saturday’s starting XV, co-captained by Finn Russell and ex-Southern Knights flanker Rory Darge, by Blair Kinghorn, Huw Jones, Tom Jordan, Duhan van der Merwe, Ben White, Pierre Schoeman, Dave Cherry, Zander Fagerson, Gregor Brown, Grant Gilchrist, Jamie Ritchie and Matt Fagerson.

Sutherland, 32, will be accompanied on the bench by Will Hurd, Jonny Gray, Marshall Sykes, Ben Muncaster, Jamie Dobie and Stafford McDowall.

Graham scored his 30th try for Scotland during their 35-29 win against Wales at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium on Saturday, taking him to within two tries of the current record of 32 held by his Edinburgh teammate van der Merwe and the tally of points he’s racked up for his country to 150.

The 27-year-old played for all but the last quarter of an hour or so of his third game of the championship, returning to Scotland’s starting XV after being ruled out of the prior round, a 16-15 defeat away to England at London’s Twickenham Stadium on Saturday, February 22, by a head injury.

Graham, replaced by Kyle Rowe with 67 minutes on the clock versus the Welsh, was rested for his country’s second defeat of this year’s tournament south of the border due to being left concussed by a clash of heads with fly-half Russell 21 minutes into their 32-18 loss hosting Ireland on Sunday, February 9, but was passed as fit to resume his first Six Nations campaign since 2022, having been ruled out of 2023 and 2024’s by previous injuries, at the weekend.

Sutherland was also making a comeback versus interim head coach Matt Sherratt’s Welsh visitors, as a 62nd-minute replacement for Schoeman, after missing February 22’s first Calcutta Cup loss for five years due to a back spasm, making that game’s match-day squad of 23 the first of the tournament not to include any Borderers.

Graham and Sutherland are among three Borderers in head coach Gregor Townsend’s squad for his seventh championship, the other being ex-Peebles hooker Patrick Harrison.

Graham is now on 45 caps since 2018, all but five of them starts, with Sutherland on 40, 21 of them from the bench, since 2016 and Edinburgh’s Harrison on three since last July, two of them as a substitute.

So far this Six Nations, Graham has been given two matches’ worth of game-time all together, also playing for the first 73 minutes of Scotland’s opening 31-19 win at home to Italy.

Sutherland’s been granted just over an hour and a half all together, playing for the last 29 minutes against Italy as a replacement for Schoeman and for the first 48 minutes versus the Irish before making way for the South African, that being his first Six Nations start since 2022.

Harrison, 22, hasn’t featured at all, his last game for Scotland having been a start for their 59-21 autumn test win hosting Portugal in November.

Scotland go into round five of this year’s Six Nations sitting fourth in the championship standings on 11 points from four fixtures, three places and five points worse off than their table-topping hosts.

They’ve not beaten head coach Fabien Galthie’s French team since a 25-21 Rugby World Cup warm-up win at Murrayfield in August 2023 and they’ve not got the better of them in the Six Nations since a 27-23 victory in Paris in March 2021.

Looking ahead to his side’s Six Nations finale the other side of the North Sea, ex-Gala back Townsend, 51, said: “They’re a quality side.

“France scored 70 points against a very good Italian team, they got 40 points against Wales and 40 against Ireland and I think they could have scored 40 or 50 against England with the amount of chances they had.

“Just now, probably this is the toughest fixture in world rugby – they beat the All Blacks in November – so we can’t wait to be involved in it.

“We know they’ll be going for the title but it’s an opportunity for us to go out and play against one of the best teams in the world right now.”