Scottish rugby lovers have gone from resignation, to despair, frustration and anger in the wake of the Calcutta Cup defeat to England.

The beauty of the Six Nations is that a chance to atone always lies just around the corner – but maybe Cardiff is the last place Scotland should be seeking redemption.

It is 14 years since a win in the Welsh capital, and eight defeats in a row for the men in the Thistle against their Three Feathered foes.

Scotland have to raise every part of their game to stand a chance – and here are five key parts of the field that they must win to cause an almighty upset.

You have to go a long way to find a better lock forward than Alun Wyn Jones in recent years. He does everything you want in the boiler room and he does it to a world class standard.

In time, and if everything continues on its current trajectory, Jonny Gray will be spoken about in the same way.

Gray is a tackle machine, appearing tireless as he pounds across the line to make stop after stop.

Last week the 21-year-old captain of Glasgow Warriors did not have his best game in a dark blue jersey, failing to stop George Kruis’ opening try and having little success at troubling the line-out or the gainline.

But he still came out of the match top of the tackle count and with his reputation as one of the northern hemisphere’s bright young talents untarnished.

Let the 6ft 9in giants of Luke Charteris and Richie Gray duke it out at the line-out – and let’s see how close Jonny can get to the accomplished second row brilliance of Wyn Jones.

The breakdown battle may not decide every test match – but it is the biggest indicator of who is on top. The dynamism of both selections make the match-up at flanker fascinating.

For 40 minutes at Murrayfield the duo of Barclay and Hardie did everything that Vern Cotter would have hoped.

In defence they hunted as a pair and the tandem worked beautifully to set up Greig Laidlaw’s second successful penalty. Barclay stepped through the gate to knock the ball clear, then Hardie leapt over England’s attempt to recover possession, forcing the turnover.

In attack Barclay’s ability to cover ground in the middle of the field put the onus on Hardie to support the wingers and full back Stuart Hogg in the wide channels. The Edinburgh openside was a leading ball carrier, and only Hogg made more metres.

They come up against another double-openside duo in red on Saturday who will be confident of dominating the breakdown area.

Sam Warburton – the British and Irish Lions captain – is simply one of the best in the business. Everything he does – hitting, disrupting, carrying – is from the front and with the greatest accuracy. He milks penalties and turnovers.

Justin Tipuric is the archetypal openside; the fetcher who sprints to the breakdown and is as hard to counteract as they come.

Wales’ flankers’ experience and deadly accuracy make them incredibly tough to get the upper hand on. But they do not have brute force that England used to choke the game and suffocate Scotland last weekend.

If the breakdown area stays competitive for the full 80 minutes, Vern Cotter’s men have a far higher chance to being able to live with their back row counterparts into the latter stages of the match than they had against the giant stoppers of James Haskell and Chris Robshaw.

This is a championship packed with outstanding number 8s. Last week Scotland felt the destructive power of Billy Vunipola, who crashed over the gainline again and again to put Scotland on the back foot.

Vunipola’s cousin, Wales’s Taulupe ‘Toby’ Faletau, possesses a significantly similar threat – raw power, size and good footwork – that could wound the Scottish defence again.

This would be an ideal moment for David Denton to recapture the form that made him one of Scotland’s biggest assets at the World Cup. While the 26-year-old is yet to make a splash in England since moving south to play for Bath, his explosive ball carrying is tailor-made for test match rugby at the highest level.

Denton stands three inches taller than his Newport Gwent Dragons counterpart, and carries an extra three pounds in weight. But his work has to be of a much higher standard than displayed against England – better running lines with quicker ball to him, greater accuracy in his handling and work at the breakdown.

Denton and Faletau will become teammates this summer when the Welshman moves to The Rec. The onus is on Denton to once again display his undoubted talent for the sake of his career at both club and country.

Welcome back to international rugby Duncan – now, could you please stop that 6ft 4in, 17st wrecking ball for us please?

Jamie Roberts is simply a force of nature. His partnership with Jonathan Davies in the Welsh midfield is the crux of Warren Gatland’s heavy-carrying, physically demanding game plan.

Luckily for those in dark blue tomorrow, Taylor is a physical player too, who happens to be playing the best rugby of his life right now at English Premiership front-runners Saracens.

Standing at 6ft 2in and a little over 14st, the 26-year-old Scottish centre has not started a test since June 2014 – mainly due to a succession of injuries. But he comes in for the Cardiff match as one of Europe’s form players.

He has never started beside Mark Bennett before and the two must gain an understanding fast, as Roberts and Davies have more than 40 test appearances together.

It will be the young bucks up against the established order in the midfield battle, and it will primarily come down to Scotland’s ability to defend the run that defines this one.

This is not a traditional head-to-head but the comparative stats after Saturday’s full time whistle blows will tell us a lot about the approaches of the two teams.

Last week Hogg had 17 carries, made 90 metres and was the heartbeat of everything positive that Scotland had to offer in a difficult situation.

Williams carried 16 times, making 95 metres in a bruising, narrow encounter in Dublin.

Momentum is everything in the Six Nations and the full backs are the men who can give it to their team.