‘Nothing to do with aura’: Four pointers as Scotland target first win v All Blacks

Scotland will resume their quest to create history on Saturday and end a 33-match winless run against New Zealand stretching back to their first meeting in 1905.

Such is the depth now available to Gregor Townsend that the head coach could omit the country’s two all-time leading try-scorers in Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe from his match-day 23 and leave two more British and Irish Lions on the bench.

Here are four takeaways after Townsend sat down with the media to discuss his team selection, what he makes of New Zealand and the thorny business of why his side have yet to emerge victorious against the men in black.

‘Huwipulotu’ combo back in business but in-form Rowe deposes Kinghorn

Townsend had several tricky decisions to make, not least at outside centre and full-back, where two proven Test operators in Huw Jones and Blair Kinghorn were available again after getting a summer off and missing the first block of Nations Championship games.

In their absence, Rory Hutchinson and Kyle Rowe both took their chances against Argentina and South Africa. But while Rowe’s sizzling early-season form for Glasgow has seen him retained at 15, the unfortunate Hutchinson has been forced to make way for Jones, who has enjoyed a symbiotic midfield partnership with Sione Tuipulotu for the past four years and scored his first try for new club Toulon in his most recent outing against Pau, which appears to have sealed his recall.

“Huw has played a lot of rugby for us and played in those big performances in the Six Nations against France and England, but missed out on the summer tour with injury concerns and also him moving to France,” Townsend said.

“Rory played really well against Argentina and played well against South Africa too so he was the man in possession of the jersey and up until a week ago, we didn’t know who would be starting at 13.

“Huw put in an excellent performance for Toulon against Pau and we felt that performance, backed up with his connection with Sione and the others in the squad, just enabled him to get the opportunity to start.”

Kinghorn has only had one outing at 15 in an injury-disrupted start to the season for Toulouse, missing four weeks from mid-September before returning – at fly-half – for their past two games.

“Kyle has always played well for us,” Townsend noted. “He’s not had a huge amount of opportunities but he grabbed them in the summer – he was excellent against Argentina and South Africa. I think his form has been really good this season.

“Blair hasn’t played that much rugby. He got back into some brilliant form at the end of the season for us – he played against France and was one of our best players over in Dublin, but he was at the back of a long year with the Lions and had a little injury niggle a few weeks ago.

“The last two weeks he’s played well as a stand-off. He’s had a lot of involvements and he’ll be mainly covering back three on the bench. We feel he’s going to have a big impact on the game too.”

Prop idols not always guaranteed to start

One selection that raised an eyebrow was the inclusion of prop Rory Sutherland, who has only played one match for Glasgow so far this season, against Benetton a fortnight ago, at loosehead over Pierre Schoeman.

Schoeman has started the majority of Scotland’s biggest games since his debut for his adopted country five years ago, accumulating 52 caps in short order, and made the British and Irish Lions squad for their Australia tour last year.

But it is not the first time Schoeman’s rambunctious ball-carrying and energetic presence has been deployed from the bench, with Townsend conscious Scotland will need to be at full throttle for the entire 80 minutes if they are to make history.

In the 2025 Six Nations, Sutherland started against Ireland with Schoeman coming off the bench and then reclaiming his place for the last three games of that championship.

After an opening defeat in Rome at the start of this year’s Six Nations, Schoeman found himself on the bench for the next two games, with Nathan McBeth earning his first major starts in the No.1 jersey before Schoeman returned for the final two games and the July Tests against Argentina and South Africa.

Fagerson, indisputably Scotland’s premier tighthead for the last seven years since WP Nel’s Test retirement after the 2019 World Cup, has also been used as a replacement three times in Scotland’s last five Tests – notably against France and Argentina – as Townsend looks to manage his frontline operators heading into next year’s World Cup.

“I think Pierre and Zander have been our number one props for a wee while now, but over the last season we’ve tried to mix things up on whether one of them starts off the bench and one of them starts at the beginning of games,” he explained.

“Pierre came off the bench against Wales [in February], made a really good impact and helped change the momentum in that game with others.

“We want to be able to get the best use of the four props, and this week we feel that’s the right balance. Rory [Sutherland] played really well against Benetton, I thought he scrummed very well and for his first game back for a few weeks, worked really hard. But Rory and Pierre will both have a lot of minutes this weekend.”

No issue with All Blacks ‘aura’ – it’s greater accuracy Scotland need

Scotland might have won any of their last three meetings with New Zealand under Townsend, but ultimately that winless run against the All Blacks has stretched out to 121 years.

If 2017 would have been something of a smash-and-grab – Beauden Barritt’s brilliant cover tackle on Stuart Hogg denying him a match-levelling try in the last play – Scotland played some of their best rugby under Townsend in the 2022 and 2025 meetings, recovering from large early deficits on both occasions.

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They scored 23 unanswered points from 0-14 down in 2022 and came from 0-17 behind to level at 17-17 this time last year, but couldn’t seal the deal on either occasion. They were left similarly frustrated after running the Springboks ragged in Pretoria in July but failed to take enough of the myriad chances created.

Is there a mental block stopping Scotland from taking that final step against the world’s top two rugby nations? Does the ‘aura’ of the All Blacks and the weight of that winless record ultimately hinder Scotland when it comes to the clutch moments in these biggest of Tests?

“I don’t believe so,” Townsend said when the thorny question was put to him, “because the evidence is there of how competitive the games have been. There were actions in the last 15-20 minutes that have meant we’ve not won. Last year it was more about us not taking our opportunities.

“The middle game [in 2022], I thought their bench were outstanding. They were definitely deserved winners and that first game in 2017 was just some occasion that could have ended up with a try. I don’t think we would have deserved to win, but it would have been a great result if we’d managed to score in the corner there.

“The one a year ago, I think it was nothing to do with aura, it was just about us not completing on a couple of occasions when we had those opportunities.”

If you can work on players’ skill-sets so they are better equipped to deliver in those decisive moments, can you coach a team to have a more ruthless edge about them?

“No, I think you need a collective mindset of being in control, of being accurate,” Townsend added. “Obviously, individuals have to prepare on their own but it’s more about that connection once you get into that area. It is an area that we’re looking to improve or just be more consistent at.

“I imagine if you ask any group of players or coach, ‘what do you want to get better at?’, it’s scoring more points. We’d set the bar really high against France and Argentina and we didn’t get to that level against South Africa. That’s a frustration when we review our summer and we look back to the opportunities we created. We don’t want to have that frustration after this weekend.

“There’s no waiting to see what the opposition are going to bring. New Zealand have played a lot of rugby, they know their game. It’s not their first game this season and they will go for it right from the start. We have to too.”

D-Mac and Beaudy give NZ twin playmaking threat…but Scots have own deadly duo

Damian McKenzie, who played a decisive hand off the bench in New Zealand’s win at Murrayfield last year with an expertly-finished try and a late penalty, started all the first three rounds of the Nations Championship and the four Tests of the ‘Greatest Rivalry’ season against South Africa at full-back.

But with first Ruben Love and then Richie Mo’unga picking up injuries, the Chiefs star has found himself back in his former station at fly-half for the two recent Bledisloe Cup Tests against Australia, with the evergreen Beauden Barrett taking over from McKenzie at the back.

It went rather well, in case you missed it, with the All Blacks scoring 14 tries and 93 points across the two games, with McKenzie pulling the strings.

“He’s been excellent,” noted Townsend. “I think his connection with the forward pods, his decisions to go at the line, he’s been really competitive too. You see that coming through. To get someone who may have been their third selection at the beginning of the year playing so well, that’s great for them. Beauden Barrett is obviously very experienced and could go into that position too.

“They use him really well as a second receiver. Nowadays with the transitions and the kicking game, full-backs aren’t catching the ball. They’re getting the ball either tapped back to them or passed back to them. So to have two 10s that are really full-backs in the back-field, or two full-backs that are really 10s, is great for them. It’s added another dimension to their game.”

While also marvelling at the recent form of Jordie Barrett – “he’s probably their best player when I’ve watched their games, his energy, defensive contributions, he’s been playing at a really high level” – Townsend bristled slightly when it was put to him New Zealand may hold more aces in the dual playmaking department.

“I think we have very much a dual playmaker but he’s closer to the action,” he said, in reference to his captain, Sione Tuipulotu. “I don’t think there will be many 12s in world rugby that would have as much influence in an attack as Sione, so a lot of our play goes to 12 rather than 15.

“Our 15s – it’s Kyle this week, Tom Jordan started the Six Nations and Blair finished the Six Nations – those guys are ball-players too. I think Kyle has got such a good rugby brain. Because no one’s seen him play stand-off, it’s like, ‘well, he’s not a second playmaker’, but we’d see him making good decisions there.

“But I think our access in attack is around Sione and Finn sharing the load and being that dual threat. If defences want to rush up on Finn, then we know Sione’s going to be ball-playing. If they want to rush up on Sione, we’ve got Huw [Jones] running those great lines and Finn an option out the back.

“The cohesion they’ve built up and the balance in what we do in that area has been really impressive over the years and they’ve not played since the Six Nations together, so it’s great to see them back out there on Saturday.”