George Horne escapes the clutches of former Glasgow Warriors team-mate Cole Forbes during Scotland’s tense victory over the Māori All Blacks at Semenoff Stadium in Whangārei. Image: Fiona Goodall / SNS Group / Scottish Rugby 
A WINNING start to their Skyscanner Pacific Tour, but Scotland rode their luck during a nerve-shredding seven minutes of overtime – conceding three penalties on their own line and losing replacement lock Cameron Henderson to the sin-bin – before the final whistle finally brought the curtain down on a pulsating contest at the Semenoff Stadium in Whangārei.
“The Maori are a quality side and I suppose we decided to put a team out tonight that wasn’t as experienced knowing that it’ll be a great development and learning experience for them,” said Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend afterwards. “But we also wanted to win this game and we’re so pleased that we did win the game and how we set that win up in the first half [with] how clinical we were.
“And then the pressure around set-piece and our defensive effort at the end saw us through. So, we’re really pleased that the tour starts on a positive. The players who haven’t played that much for Scotland and players that were coming back from injury were able to be part of a winning side tonight.”
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“I think it was probably beyond expectations knowing what the Maori did last week in Japan and how strong they’ve been against touring teams that we were so far ahead [midway through the second half],” he continued. “And we knew that they would come back and when they went through a number of phases it looked like they had the momentum at the end. So, we needed a momentum shifting moment and Jamie Dobie and Fergus Burke, after real pressure at a line-out, got through and just the reaction of the team to get that ball back [was excellent].
“That could easily have ended up with them winning with the pressure they had on us in the 22, and it would have been a really disappointing and devastating to lose at the end having led for so long, so we’re so glad we saw it through.”
In a hugely physical encounter, there were a lot of sore bodies at the end, with Ben Muncaster a doubt and Gregor Brown already deemed unavailable for next Saturday’s clash against Fiji in Suva.
“Ben was a dead leg that just seized up so that’ll be one to manage,” explained Townsend. “We travel to Fiji tomorrow so it’s probably not going to get that great an opportunity with the flights and travel to recover for Monday, but we’ll see how he is when we get back into training Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Gregor unfortunately ran into Alex Masibaka and was removed with a concussion. I don’t know whether it’ll be the 12 day or the seven day protocol. I’ll have to get the medics to update me on that but he’ll be out for next week for sure.”
“Everyone else I think is okay, it was a huge effort physically and when you come to this side of the world there’s obviously a lot of things you have to deal with, travel, getting over jet lag and we’ve had a hard training week, so I’m just pleased that we showed that effort at the end and there’s a lot of players that didn’t play tonight who will be itching to go next week.”
Townsend added a few words of praise for Masibaka, who picked up a yellow-card just three minutes after coming off the bench for his first Scotland appearance, but returned to play a leading role in taking the game to the Maori at the start of the second half.
“I love the confidence he showed. It was a tough yellow-card. I think the referee tonight did give out yellow-cards whenever teams were in the 22.
“We obviously had a couple, they had two or three, but when he [Masibaka] came back on in the second half he took a quick-tap and he had a great pick off the base [of a scrum] at No 8, so to have that mindset in your first appearance at this level is really encouraging for the future.
“He’s enjoyed it tonight, same with Fergus Burke and Fin Richardson, who’s played for Scotland at A level and age grade level, but this was a proper game tonight, a Test match. Obviously we’re not giving caps but it felt like a Test match against that quality of opposition.”
It took the Māori All Blacks just 39 seconds to lay down their marker when Sam Nock streaking in for the opening try of the contest on a counter-attack off George Horne‘s slightly long clearance box-kick, with full-back Zarn Sullivan making the decisive contribution to creating the score by gathering his own defence-breaking chip over the top on the first bounce.
Scotland took a while to settle before striking back on 10 minutes when Harry Paterson did well to chase down Ollie Smith‘s excellent grubber to ground the ball just before it disappeared over the dead-ball line, with Hastings adding the conversion to edge the visitors into a two-point lead and then extending his team’s advantage to five points on 15 minutes by kicking a straightforward offside penalty from right in front of the posts.
That lead stretched to 12 points on 23 minutes when the Māori All Blacks failed to deal with Horne’s contestable kick on halfway, Rory Hutchinson hacked ahead, and Horne won the foot race to ground the ball. The TMO got involved to encourage Nika Amashukeli to chalk off the try for a knock-on in the act of scoring, but the Georgian referee rightly ruled that the score was good, and Hastings was again on target with his subsequent shot at goal.
Scotland lost No 8 Ben Muncaster to a knee injury on 28 minutes, which brought Alexander Masibaka into the fray for his first outing in a Scotland jersey, and the powerful back-rower – who is originally from Australia (qualifying for Scotland through his Paisley-born mother) and who plays his club rugby in France with Montpellier – made an inauspicious start to his international career.
He was shown a yellow-card just three minutes later for pulling a line-out maul down immediately after his team had been warned by referee Amashukeli for conceding a series of penalties as they struggled to cope with a ferocious Māori All Blacks onslaught.
It was a double-whammy for the Scots because the Māori All Blacks scored again whilst playing advantage during that same passage of play, with Isaia Walker-Leawere muscling over from Te Kamaka Howden‘s inside-pass. This time Rivez Reihana nailed the conversion.
Despite being down to 14 men, the Scots managed to restore their 12 point advantage just before the break, when they once again profited from their smart kicking game, with Arron Reed showing his pace to hunt down the ever-assured Smith’s diagonal into the in-goal area, and Hastings converting.
The Māori All Blacks put themselves under all sorts of pressure at the start of the second half when Nock’s wild pass from a line-out required a diving catch from Reihana inside his in-goal area, who then snatched at a clearance which went up in the air, leading to a yellow-card for Howden for deliberately palming the ball dead instead of attempting a risky catch, and the big flanker was soon joined in the sin-bin by team-mate Bailyn Sullivan following a deliberate knock-on just two minutes later. With Masibaka now back on the park, it was 15 versus 13.
The Māori All Blacks will have felt hard done by when they were penalised for driving Fin Richardson into the air at a scrum, before the visiting attack clicked into gear again to capitalise on their two-man advanateg with an exhilarating 60-yard try which featured some great pace and hands from Hastings, Hutchinson (with a sublime backhanded offload), Reed and finished off by Horne.
No sooner were the Māori back to 15 men than they had snatched themselves a lifeline though a try from hooker and skipper Kurt Eklund off the back of a powerful line-out maul, converted by Reihana.
And the hosts then pulled it back to a three-point game with another punishing period of pressure which eventually yielded a try wide on the left when Zarn Sullivan picked out Gideon Wrampling with a cut-out pass, and Kaleb Trask added the touchline conversion.
Scotland got back on top going into the last 10 minutes with an extended spell camped inside the home 22, but there was no way though against a hugely committed and highly physical defence, and then a ruck penalty in the final minute of regular time provided the Maori All Blacks with one last shot at glory.
The men in black battled through 28 relentless phases then kicked a penalty to the corner. Cameron Henderson was yellow-carded for pulling the line-out down and the Maori All Blacks went back to the touchline. Scotland were penalised again – for a side entry this time – meaning another line-out. But this time the ball was not controlled at the back of the maul, and Scotland were able to swarm over the isolated Kemara Hauiti-Parapara to secure the turnover, allowing Hutchinson to launch the ball into the stands to seal the win.
Teams –
Māori All Blacks: Z Sullivan; C Forbes (C Evans 57), B Sullivan, G Wrampling, D Rona; R Reihana (K Trask 58-66), S Nock (K Hauiti-Parapara 70); J Proffit (P Rakete-Stones 53), K Eklund (J Devery 63), K Sykes-Martin (B Kumeroa 53), A Shalfoon (Laghlan McWhannell 53), I Walker-Leawere, T Howden, J Brown (C Delany 58), C Grace.
Scotland: O Smith; H Paterson, R Hutchinson, S McDowall, A Reed; A Hastings (F Burke 62), G Horne (J Dobie 62); N McBeth (A Hepburn 50), P Harrison (G Turner 50), F Richardson (W Hurd, 50), M Sykes (M Williamson, 50), C Henderson, J Bayliss, A Onyeama-Christie (G Brown 70-78), B Muncaster (A Masibaka 28).
Subs: ,
Referee: Nika Amashukeli (Geo)
Scorers –
Māori All Blacks: Tries: Rona, Walker-Leawere, Eklund, Wrampling; Con: Reihana 2, Trask.
Scotland: Tries Paterson, Horne 2, Reed; Cons: Hastings 3; Pens: Hastings.
Scoring sequence (Māori All Blacks first): 5-0; 5-5; 5-7; 5-10; 5-15; 5-17; 10-17; 12-17; 12-22; 12-24 (h-t) 12-29; 17-29; 19-29; 24-29; 26-29.
Yellow cards –
Māori All Blacks: Howden (43 mins), B Sullivan (45 mins)
Scotland: Masibaka (31 mins), Henders (84 mins)
Attendance: 10,150
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