You’d think over the course of 120 years, they might have sneaked a win somewhere. One day where they caught the All Blacks off guard, or the men in black were just a bit off it. But no. In 32 matches since 1905, Scotland have managed just two draws and lost on 30 occasions, including their last 20 meetings. Will they ever remove that stain of being the only home nation never to taste victory against New Zealand?
England have beaten them eight times in 46 contests, including four times in the professional era. Ireland didn’t manage it in any of their first 28 but have won five of the last 11 since that historic triumph in Chicago in 2016. Wales won three of their first four matches with New Zealand, but the last of those was in 1953. There have been 33 successive defeats since, so Scotland are not alone in their perennial suffering against the All Blacks – at least for the last 72 years.
Some Scottish teams have come close, but still no cigar. Recent meetings at Murrayfield have been hotly contested, with losing margins of eight points (2014), five (2017) and eight again (2022). More on those anon.
Before those agonising near-misses, two groups of Scots could at least claim some honour in emerging undefeated from a match against the All Blacks.
The 1964 tourists, led by the venerable Sir Wilson Whineray, had beaten Ireland, Wales and England either side of Christmas on a mammoth four-month tour in which they won 34 of their 36 matches and lost only one – to Newport, 3-0, at Rodney Parade. Those were the days.
The only other ‘blemish’ for a squad featuring other Kiwi icons such as Brian Lochore, Don Clarke and Colin Meads came on 18 January 1964, when they were denied a Grand Slam against the home nations by a Scottish side – including a young Jim Telfer winning his second cap and Lions prop David Rollo – whose efforts earned a 0-0 draw.
“We had a good team at that time, we could take on anybody just about,” recalled the remarkable 91-year-old Rollo, one of 13 new inductees into Scottish Rugby’s Hall of Fame last week. “It was a pretty tough fight, right enough.”
I had my jaw broken at the end of the game, so I was in the medics’ room afterwards and there was a fair bit of disappointment. How often do you get the All Blacks in a position like that?
Telfer, by now in his first stint as Scotland’s head coach, was also a key influence in a rather more rollicking 25-25 draw in November 1983, when the team who would go on to win only Scotland’s second Grand Slam the following year came within the width of a post of victory.
“I remember our rucking was fantastic that day,” recalled fly-half legend John Rutherford, one of eight Scots who had recently returned from the 1983 Lions tour of New Zealand. “The All Blacks were the best in the world in that area then, but Jim Telfer was our coach and he was a force of nature when it came to rucking. For once ours was probably better than the All Blacks and it was brilliant playing behind a pack like that.”
Rutherford and half the Scottish team that day were also part of a South of Scotland side beaten 30-9 by the tourists in Galashiels a fortnight earlier. “We were well beaten – we got hammered – but that gave us huge motivation to perform the following week,” he said.
Facing the All Blacks for a fourth time in a Scotland jersey, Rutherford already had regrets as part of a side beaten 11-4 in Dunedin in 1981. “We should have beaten them, we were the better team on the day, but it was the usual thing – we didn’t take our chances and the All Blacks are just the best ever at taking theirs.”
With that in mind, Rutherford attempted four drop-goals early in the 1983 contest, with two of them on the money to give Scotland a 6-3 lead. “They’re a very hard team to score against and it was something we discussed before the game – if we get drop-goal opportunities, go for them. Fortunately, two of them went over!”
A harum-scarum encounter saw the electric Bernie Fraser score a couple of tries for New Zealand, but five penalties from Peter Dods kept Scotland in touch. With a few minutes left, the hosts trailed 21-25 when Rutherford passed to centre David Johnston, who launched a beautifully-weighted kick to the right corner that wing Jim Pollock managed to dot down just before it went dead, to level the scores.
“In those days the dead-ball areas at Murrayfield were huge,” Rutherford recalled. “We had noticed the All Blacks played a very flat defensive line and we had planned this. It’s funny, we were practising on the Friday and we just couldn’t get it right, but on the day it worked. David just chipped it over and it was a clear run-in for Jim. It was perfect.”
That left Dods with a potential match-winning conversion, with time nearly up. But the full-back’s attempt from the touchline drifted just across the face of the posts and another what-might-have-been chapter was filed in the Scottish story of this fixture.
“I would never ever blame Dodsy because he won so many games for us with his fantastic goalkicking, but it just wasn’t to be,” Rutherford reflected. “I had my jaw broken at the end of the game, so I was in the medics’ room afterwards and there was a fair bit of disappointment. How often do you get the All Blacks in a position like that?”
It’s a sentiment familiar to plenty of the current generation, who have passed up at least two more opportunities for that long-coveted maiden win in recent encounters.
After Vern Cotter’s side ran a below-par All Blacks close in 2014 in a 24-16 defeat, Scotland came as close as they had done since 1983 to getting the monkey off their backs in 2017, five games into Townsend’s tenure as coach.
Beauden Barrett’s try appeared to have put New Zealand out of sight at 22-10 up, but with eight minutes left, and the All Blacks down to 14 men, Huw Jones’ converted try set up a thunderous denouement.
I remember the noise. It was up there with the loudest I have ever heard Murrayfield.
In the 77th minute, Stuart Hogg set off on a blistering run deep into New Zealand territory. He appeared to be heading all the way to the left corner, with most of Murrayfield roaring him on, alive with anticipation of a match-levelling try that would leave Finn Russell – the only Scotland player to feature in all three of the most recent contests – with a potential match-winning conversion.
“I remember the noise,” recalled Scotland lock Grant Gilchrist, who had come on as a last-quarter replacement. “It was up there with the loudest I have ever heard Murrayfield. I’d carried the phase before and was on the ground and just heard this noise and thought we’d done it. Then just as I creaked myself back to my feet, I looked towards the corner and saw [Beauden] Barrett make the tackle.”
The ever-alert All Blacks playmaker had sniffed the danger and had just enough pace to reach Hogg, whose attempted inside pass as he was tackled into touch drifted forward. A final dramatic act of a riveting contest. More agony for Scotland.
“It was as close as that, although we had to do a lot of work to come back late on in that one,” Gilchrist reflected. “But last time out, it wasn’t a late comeback, it was right there to be won.”
The late Doddie Weir had delivered the match ball in 2017, a few months after the legendary lock had revealed his heart-breaking diagnosis of motor neurone disease.
If his presence created a turbo-charged atmosphere, there was even more emotion in the air five years later when Weir, now in a wheelchair, was again in attendance with his family, on a day which proved to be just two weeks before his untimely death at the age of 52.
Scotland did Doddie proud that day, recovering from an early 14-0 deficit to score 23 unanswered points with some of the finest rugby of the Townsend era – Russell and Hogg were both magnificent – to lead 23-14 heading into the final quarter.
But Jack Dempsey’s yellow card for a deliberate knock-on gave New Zealand an opening and – a familiar tale, this – the All Blacks ruthlessly exploited it. Scott Barrett and Mark Telea both grabbed their second tries of another pulsating contest, leaving more broken Scottish hearts scattered across Murrayfield.
“It really felt like one that got away,” added Gilchrist, one of 15 of the current squad on duty that day. “We were better than them in a lot of areas. It is always sore to lose, but that one felt particularly sore because we felt like it was definitely there for the winning.
Maybe that weight of history before doesn’t affect this team because we’ve had two very competitive fixtures against New Zealand.
“We know how well we had to play in that game to put ourselves in that position, but we’re hopeful that this time round, we’ve learned lessons in the meantime and if we prepare well and get ourselves in that position again, we can do something historic.
“That will be the goal this autumn. We want to win four games and we want to be the first Scottish team to beat the All Blacks.”
Will the mental baggage of never having closed the deal against these opponents come into it? Townsend doesn’t believe so.
“I don’t think that will be that much of an issue,” he said. “I believe this team knows they have the players to beat anyone. Maybe that weight of history before doesn’t affect this team because we’ve had two very competitive fixtures against New Zealand.”
Maybe. Maybe not. New Zealand will be missing two of the three Barrett brothers, Scott and Jordie, while Scotland won’t be far off full strength. Opportunity knocks, for sure.
Scotland will need to defend like they’ve never defended before and take their chances when they come.
“When everyone is fit, our backline is as good as anyone in the world at the moment,” noted Rutherford, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday. “They won’t fear the All Blacks, but New Zealand’s ability to take points when they get the chance… I still don’t think there is anyone better.
“You don’t get bad All Blacks teams. There are areas of their game they have really improved like the scrum – you could have maybe pointed to that a few years ago, but not now.
“I would love nothing more than our boys to beat them on Saturday, but’s going to be really tough. A lot of people think this could be the year. It would be great, but we would still need everything to go for us and the All Blacks to have an off-day.
“Scotland will need to defend like they’ve never defended before and take their chances when they come. You never know…we’ve got to beat them sometime. It’s about time.”
Yes.🪼
RB love your work. 🤣
I totally agree with everyone else here!
Well, if you can’t beat this fairly average ABs side nearing the end of their season with their poor coaching team, you’re probably never going to.
They’re probably never going to
as a famous car manufacturer once said “history is bunk”. For all Razor’s wins, this is still an AB side short of coherency and aggression, and if he manages a slam Razor will shut up us doubters for a long while. The odds still favour England to be the spoiler, but no-one is doubting Scotland’s ability to also do it.
I’d rather Scotland beat NZ than England. But I think NZ should prevail in both.
“We’ve got to beat them sometime.”
Not sure, that the world works this way. Scotland can also very well keep losing forever.
At Murrayfield, Scotland are always dangerous, and are twice the side they’re abroad (just ask the Eagles … ouch), but they lack the beefers to tackle Ireland, let alone New Zealand. I just don’t see an area of advantage for Scotland outside of a heroic performance combined with ABs underperformance. Can happen, of course. I’m just saying, that the “this time we surely have to beat them, since we’ve lost to them sometime many times.” logic doesn’t apply here. This is not a dice roll with specific fixed probability of success. The outcome of a rugby match is a deterministic event.
Now would be as good a time as any.
That is what the Irish said right before yet another quarter final exit against NZ at the world cup but I will concede that there is a bigger chance of Scotland beating the All Blacks than Ireland getting past a quarter final at a world cup.
I reckon the fact everyone is talking about 120 years of coming up short, the weight of history is indeed weighing heavily. There’s an enormous difference between being competitive, and winning.
Should be a good game though, the Scott’s will be up for it. The ABs haven’t been great at stringing wins together of late, so the potential is there for a banana skin match. But my gut says otherwise - or perhaps it’s the weight of history talking to me.
Nic Berry is the ref…