Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend hoping Borders rugby legend Doddie Weir’s presence will spur Scots on to historic victory versus All Blacks

The Scots were beaten 22-17 by the All Blacks at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium in November 2017, six months after ex-Gala star Townsend took over from Vern Cotter as head coach.

It was only a last-ditch Beauden Barrett tackle that stopped Hawick’s Stuart Hogg scoring an equalising try at the death, potentially setting up Finn Russell to deliver a match-winning conversion to buck 112 years of history, however.

That was the closest Scotland had got at home to beating the All Blacks since a 25-25 draw in 1983 under Melrose’s Jim Telfer, though they later lost by only a 21-18 margin in Auckland in 1990 with Ian McGeechan in charge.

Among those watching five years ago was ex-Scottish international Weir, not long after revealing that he’d been diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the end of the previous year, and the Blainslie 52-year-old, capped 61 times between 1990 and 2000, will be at Murrayfield again this weekend to cheer his old side on.

“That was a special occasion, not for the game so much but what that night meant to Scottish rugby with Doddie Weir there to present the match ball,” said Townsend, 49.

“It is five years on and Doddie is going to be there at the weekend and that is something I am sure everyone will want to recognise. We’ll all want to acknowledge what he has done since he launched his foundation.”

Looking ahead to Sunday’s game, kicking off at 2.15pm and being broadcast live on Amazon Prime, he added: “We have to create a special occasion again on the field.

“I believe that in 2017e we didn’t have the level of confidence in the first half to win that game.

“We played some brilliant rugby in the first half and should have scored more points, but it was 3-3 at the break, then we found ourselves chasing after it in the last 10 or 15 minutes and we almost won, so it’s a reminder that we have to take opportunities when we are playing really well against one of the best teams in the world.

“There is 100 years of unfinished business.”

This weekend’s third autumn test at Murrayfield follows a 28-12 win over Fiji last Saturday and a 16-15 loss to Australia a week previously.

Both Hogg and fellow ex-Hawick player Darcy Graham were sin-binned after starting against Fiji and earning their 94th and 31st caps respectively.

They were joined later on, 51 minutes in, by another ex-Green, Rory Sutherland, making his 21st international appearance.

Townsend is scheduled to name his starting line-up to play a New Zealand squad potentially including expatriate Borderer Finlay Christie, capped 13 times since making his test debut in 2021, tomorrow afternoon, November 11.

If his team are to pull off the historic upset he’s hoping for on Sunday, they’ll need to raise their game, he admits.

"We can’t give away as many penalties and we’ve got to convert when we have opportunities, which we didn’t do enough against Fiji,” said the ex-Border Reivers player.

“We won’t get as many opportunities to score tries next week, so we’ve got to make sure we take them.

“The All Blacks have brought a very strong team. We saw the depth they have with the performance of their second team against Ireland A on Friday.

“They know they’ll have a tough tour coming to the northern hemisphere, with the travel and the different styles of rugby they’ll face up here.

“They’re still clearly one of the best te ams in the world and we’ve never beaten them, so it’s going to take our best performance to win.”