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england v scotland – what would happen?

“This is also the reason why Scottish Swimming is really on the up just now including the fact their men’s team could probably beat the English men’s team at present”.

OK, so it probably was a flippant comment on the swimclub forums, but it got us thinking. So we decided to find out, after all the general standard of Scottish swimming has undoubtedly improved over the past few years, but how would they fare against the Auld Enemy?

The format:

A dual meet, across a full FINA world championship programme, using currently available rankings (to June 2001) from the ASA and SwimScotland web sites to determine the results of each event. Relay times were calculated from the top 4 swimmer’s times, with an allowance of 1.5s for takeovers, in line with ASA selectiuon criteria. 10 points for a win and 5 points for second. Results for the races are shown below.

The result:

England: 180 points

Scotland: 120 points

Commentary:

The scoring system may make the result seem closer than it really is, with England winning 16 of the 20 events, but there would undoubtedly have been some extremely close racing in many of the events. What is noticeable, however, is the reliance of both teams, but particularly Scotland, on a small number of swimmers to cover a large number of events. Evidently in reality it would be foolhardy to expect Graeme Smith, for example, to swim quite so many events at his best, but this would probably have had little effect on the final outcome. One should also remember that this is a purely academic exercise and you can never discount swimmers producing personal bests to upset the form book. After all its only a bit of fun, the real test will come in Manchester next year!

The results






























































































































































































England
Scotland

Name
Time
Event
Name
Time

Mark Foster
00:22.13
50m free
David Leith
00:23.71
E

Matt Kidd
00:50.05
100 free
David Leith
00:51.73
E

Paul Palmer
01:48.10
200 free
Graeme Smith
01:51.73
E

Jamie Salter
03:50.47
400 free
Graeme Smith
03:52.15
E

Adam Faulkner
08:01.15
800 free
Graeme Smith
07:57.93
S

Adam Faulkner
15:29.49
1500 free
Graeme Smith
15:03.15
S

Neil Willey
00:25.90
50 back
Gregor Tait
00:26.25
E

Adam Ruckwood
00:55.79
100 back
Gregor Tait
00:55.91
E

Simon Militis
02:02.73
200 back
Gregor Tait
02:00.18
S

James Gibson
00:27.71
50 breast
Ian Edmond
00:29.31
E

Darren Mew
01:01.47
100 breast
Ian Edmond
01:02.69
E

Adam Whitehead
02:15.99
200 breast
Ian Edmond
02:12.70
S

Mark Foster
00:23.62
50 fly
Cameron Black
00:25.30
E

James Hickman
00:53.53
100 fly
Todd Cooper
00:55.87
E

James Hickman
01:57.68
200 fly
Todd Cooper
02:03.96
E

James Goddard
02:02.63
200 IM
Michael Cole
02:04.96
E

James Goddard
04:19.30
400 IM
Michael Cole
04:31.76
E

England (Kidd, Palmer, Belk Scotcher)
03:20.70
4×100 free
Scotland (Leith,Hall,Carry, Edmond)
03:30.30
E

England (Ruckwood, Mew, Hickman, Kidd)
03:39.34
4×100 med
Scotland (Tait,Edmond,Cooper, Leith)
03:43.20
E

England (Palmer, Belk, Sinclair, Salter)
07:16.50
4×200 free
Scotland (Leith, Smith, Hay, Jameson)
07:29.31
E