Scotland will continue their quest to make history on Saturday and end their 33-match winless streak New Zealand dating back to their first meeting in 1905.
Such is the depth now available to Gregor Townsend that the head coach could leave out two of the country’s all-time leading scorers, Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe, from his matchday 23 and leave two more Britons and an Irishman Lions on the bench.
Here are four takeaways after Townsend spoke to the media to discuss his team selection, his thoughts on New Zealand and the thorny task of why his side have yet to emerge victorious against the men in black.
The ‘Huwipulotu’ combination is back in business, but the in-form Rowe replaces Kinghorn
Townsend had some tricky decisions to make, not least at outside center and full-back, where two proven Test operators Huw Jones and Blair Kinghorn were available again after being given the summer off and missing the first block Nations Championship games.
In their absence, Rory Hutchinson and Kyle Rowe took their chances against Argentina and South Africa. But while Rowe has been in great form to start the season Glasgow saw him retained at 15, an unfortunate Hutchinson was 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 the new club Toulon in his latest attack against Pau, which appears to have sealed his recall.
“Hu played a lot of rugby for us and played in those big games in the Six Nations against France and England but missed the summer tour due to injury concerns and having moved to France,” said Townsend.
“Rory played very well against Argentina and played well against South Africa also, so he was the man who had the jersey and until a week ago we didn’t know who was going to start at 13.
“Hu gave a great performance against Toulon Pau and we felt that that performance, backed up by his bond with Sione and the rest of the team, just gave him the opportunity to start.”
Kinghorn made just one outing in 15 in an injury-disrupted start to the season for Toulouse, missing four weeks from mid-September before returning – at half-time – for the final two games.
“Kyle has always played well for us,” Townsend said. “He hasn’t had a huge amount of opportunities but he’s grabbed them in the summer – he was excellent against Argentina and South Africa. I think his form has been very good this season.
“Blair hasn’t played that much rugby. He came back in some brilliant form at the end of the season for us – he played against France and was one of our best players in Dublin, but he was at the tail end of a long year with the Lions and had a bit of an injury a few weeks ago.
“The last two weeks he has played well as a counter. He has had a lot of involvement and will mainly cover the back three on the bench. We think he will also have a big impact on the game.”
Prop idols are not always guaranteed to start
One selection that raised an eyebrow was the inclusion of prop Rory Sutherland, who has played just one match for Glasgow this season, against Benetton two weeks ago, at large because of Pierre Schoeman.
Schoeman has started most of Scotland’s biggest games since making his debut for his adopted country five years ago, amassing 52 caps in short order, and has been included in the British and Irish Lions squad for his Australia tour last year.
But it is not the first time Schoeman’s blistering ball-carrying and energetic presence has been deployed from the bench, and Townsend’s conscious Scotland will need to be at full throttle for the full 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 the 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 big starts in the first shirt before Schoeman returned for the final two games and July’s Tests against Argentina and South Africa.
Fagerson, Scotland’s undisputed leading run-getter for the past seven years since WP Nel’s Test withdrawal after the 2019 World Cup, has also been used as a substitute three times in Scotland’s last five Tests – notably against France and Argentina – as Townsend looks to manage his first operators heading into next year’s World Cup.
“I think Pierre and Zander have been our number one props for a while, but during last season we tried to mix things up with one of them starting off the bench and one of them starting 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 the others.
“We want to be able to make the most of the four props and this week we feel that’s the right balance. Rory (Sutherland) played really well against Benetton, I thought he played well and for his first game in a few weeks he worked really hard. But Rory and Pierre will get plenty of minutes this weekend.”
No problem with All black people ‘aura’ – that’s the greater precision Scotland needs
Scotland may have won any of their last three meetings with New Zealand under Townsend, but in the end that run without a win against the All Blacks stretched to 121 years.
If 2017 was something of a smash-and-grab – Beauden Barritt brilliantly covered Stuart Hogg’s tackle to deny him a last-ditch equalizer – Scotland played some of their best rugby under Townsend in the 2022 and 2025 meetings, both recovering from big early deficits.
They rattled off 23 unanswered points from 0-14 down in 2022 and came from 0-17 down to 17-17 at this time last year, but failed to seal the deal either way. They were left similarly frustrated after running with the Springboks in Pretoria in July, but did not convert enough of the chances they created.
Is there a mental block preventing Scotland from making the final push against two of the world’s leading rugby nations? Does the ‘aura’ of the All Blacks and the weight of that winless record end up hindering Scotland when it comes to clutch moments in this biggest of tests?
“I don’t believe it,” Townsend said when asked the thorny question, “because there’s evidence of how competitive the games were. There were actions in the last 15-20 minutes that meant we didn’t win. Last year it was more about not taking our chances.
“The middle game (in 2022), I thought their bench was outstanding. They were definitely deserved winners and that first game in 2017 was just an opportunity that could have ended with a try. I don’t think we deserved to win, but it would have been a great result if we had managed to score from the corner.
“The one a year ago, I don’t think it had anything to do with the aura, it was just that we didn’t finish on the few occasions when we had those opportunities.”
If you can work on a player’s skills so that they are better equipped to score in those crucial moments, can you coach a team to have a more relentless edge on themselves?
“No, I think you need a collective mindset to be in control, to be accurate,” Townsend added. “Obviously, individuals have to prepare themselves, but it’s more about that connection when you get in that area. That’s an area we want to improve or just be more consistent.
“I suppose if you ask any group of players or coaches, ‘what do you want to be better at?’, you get more points. Against France and Argentina we set really high and against South Africa we didn’t get to that level. It’s a frustration when we look back at our summer and look back at the chances we created. We don’t want to be frustrated after that week.
“There’s no waiting to see what the opposition will bring. New Zealand have played a lot of rugby, they know their game. This is not their first game of the season and they will go for it from the start. We have to too.”
D-Mac and Beaudy pose a threat to the NZ twins in the game… but the Scots have their 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 late penalty, has started all three of the Nations Championship rounds and four Tests of the ‘Greatest Rivalry’ season against South Africa at full-back.
But with first Ruben Love and then Richie Mo’ung picking up injuries, Bosses The star was back at his former station for the two recent Bledisloe Cup Tests against Australia, with the evergreen Beauden Barrett taking over from McKenzie at the back.
It went pretty well, in case you missed it, with the All Blacks scoring 14 tries and 93 points in two games, with McKenzie pulling the strings.
“He was excellent,” Townsend noted. “I think his connection with the forwards, his decisions to go to the line, he was also really competitive. You see it happening. For someone who was maybe their third selection at the beginning of the year to play so well, it’s great for them. Beauden Barrett is obviously very experienced and could go in that position.
“They use him really well as a second receiver. In this day and age with transitions and the kicking game, backs don’t catch the ball. They get the ball or it’s returned to them or they pass it. So to have two 10s that are really backfield, or two backs that are really great for them, it adds another 10s game of theirs.”
While he also admired Jordie Barrett’s recent form – “he’s probably their best player when I’ve watched their games, his energy, his defensive contributions, he’s played at a really high level” – Townsend bristled when told New Zealand could have more aces in the dual playmaking department.
“I think we have a dual playmaker, but he is closer to the action,” he said, referring to his captain, Sione Tuipulot. “I don’t think there will be many 12s in world rugby that have as much impact in attack as Sion, so a lot of our play goes to 12s rather than 15s.
“Our 15s – Kyle is this week, Tom Jordan started the Six Nations and Blair finished the Six Nations – and those guys are players. I think Kyle has such a good rugby brain. Because nobody’s seen him play on the opposite side, it’s like, ‘well, he’s not a second playmaker,’ but we’d see him make good decisions there.
“But I think our approach offensively is about Sione and Finn sharing the load and being a dual threat. If the defense wants to rush Finn, then we know Sione is going to make a play on the ball. If they want to rush Sione, we have Huw (Jones) running those great lines and Finn an option from the back.
“The cohesion they’ve built and the balance in what we do in that area has been really impressive over the years and they haven’t played since the Six Nations together so it’s great to see them out there on Saturday.”
