Sione Tuipulotu on what Scotland must do to beat All Blacks

Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu senses the team that can stay “tougher for longer” will emerge victorious when New Zealand visit Murrayfield.

Scotland looked like they might claim a first win over the All Blacks last year after fighting back from 17-0 down to level, only to lose it to a late try.

Gregor Townsend’s team have since beaten the likes of England and France in Edinburgh and Tuipulotu feels they have progressed.

“We’ve been through a lot in the last 12 months, as coaching staff, as a playing group and as a team together,” the Glasgow centre said.

“We’ve had to support each other, been through some losses that we’ve had to pick each other up, and we’ve also been out there with some landmark victories.

“I do feel like we’ve progressed a lot in the last 12 months and it’s been the experiences that have allowed us to progress, playing in Pretoria against the world champions, having those type of experiences that as a team we haven’t really been exposed to a lot, at least for as long as I’ve been playing for Scotland.

“We learned a lot playing the All Blacks last time, and to get to that last 15 minutes and for the game to be in the balance. They had a yellow card at the time for us to really have momentum.

“We learned a lot about finishing off games and we carry a lot of disappointment from that game just because we had come back from 17 points down and really wrestled back momentum to the point where it was pretty overwhelming.

“It gives us confidence that we can create a game that can overwhelm the All Blacks at times, but obviously we didn’t do enough and I hope that over the last 12 months the experiences that we’ve had against other top teams put us in good stead for the last 15 minutes.”

New Zealand scored 93 points across two wins over Australia last month, after coming off second best in a series against South Africa.

“I do think we play a similar style,” Australian-born Tuipulotu said. “We want to hold on to the ball and get into deep phase count and challenge the defence. That’s definitely how the All Blacks have been playing.

“I think who’s going to win is basically who’s going to be tougher for longer.

“I’m sure they’re fully understanding of the fact that we’re going to have our moments in this game and we’re fully understanding that they’re probably going to have their moments as well.

“I think it’s just going to be the team that can be tougher for longer after 80 minutes and ride those momentum waves that we saw 12 months ago.

“That’s an exciting challenge because we know they’ve had a few experiences of doing that over the last three months but I hope we can pose a little bit of a different challenge with the ball.”