Scotland national rugby team head coach Gregor Townsend hoping to get third time lucky v All Blacks
Scotland national rugby team head coach Gregor Townsend is hoping to get third time lucky against New Zealand this coming Saturday after only losing out by single-figure margins in his two prior tests in charge against them.
Though the Scots have never beaten the All Blacks in 120 years of trying – losing 30 times and drawing twice, 0-0 in 1964 and 25-25 in 1983, both at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium – Townsend’s two games against them were closer-run things than might have been expected given that winless record stretching back over a century and it’s now 13 years since New Zealand managed to rack up a double-figure winning margin, back in November 2012 at Murrayfield, by 51-22.
The 52-year-old’s first game against New Zealand after taking over from Vern Cotter as Scotland’s head coach in May 2017 was a 22-17 defeat in November of that year and the next was a 31-23 loss five years later, both at Murrayfield.
Jonny Gray and Huw Jones scored the hosts’ tries first time round, with Finn Russell adding two conversions and a penalty and Hawick’s Darcy Graham touched down in 2022, with a penalty try also being awarded and Russell kicking three penalties and a conversion.
Though heartened by his team’s record-breaking 85-0 demolition of the USA in their opening autumn test at Murrayfield on Saturday gone, former Gala and Border Reivers back Townsend is well aware that their next opponents will be a far more daunting proposition, saying: “Obviously we had more ball than we probably would get normally against a top-ten team.
“I thought the effort was outstanding. Of course next week will be a different opposition, one of the top teams in the world, but what we worked on in training, we got that out on the pitch, so it’s a good start to the campaign.
“Everybody’s aware of the step up next week. We obviously know New Zealand are going to test us in different ways than the USA.
“I can’t wait, actually. We don’t get to play them that often and we’ve only played them twice in my time and they were both great occasions, very good games.
“We know we have to be close to our best to win, but that’s what we’ll be working on in training this week.
“I did feel that in terms of how the squad prepared, even in pouring rain last Wednesday, you could tell that there's an edge, that there’s more leadership coming out from our players.
“The players are driving a lot of what we’re doing in training, so that’ll have to happen next week and we’ll have to have the players driving our performance in those 80 minutes.”
Kick-off against the All Blacks is at 3.10pm.
New Zealand – 26-13 winners against Ireland in the USA on Saturday, with expatriate Borderer Wallace Sititi among their four try-scorers – are currently ranked second in the world, after South Africa, with Townsend’s team eighth.
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