It is 100 years since Scotland played their first match at Murrayfield, but that is the least of the monuments confronting them this weekend. New Zealand\u2019s unbeaten record against them stands at 120 years and counting. Which is to say, Scotland have never beaten the All Blacks, and Saturday represents their 33rd attempt.<\/p>\n
The good news is that Murrayfield\u2019s centenary celebrations will culminate in its showcase fixture of the autumn with Scotland given as healthy a chance of victory as they ever have been against these tourists. True, that means little more than that victory has not been ruled out, but recent contests between these two (all at Murrayfield, it should be said) have seen a narrowing of the usual margin of defeat. At times over this past century, those defeats have been hideous to behold. Not so any more.<\/p>\n
They remain underdogs. At the time of writing, you can get a Scotland win at 3-1 with one high-street bookie, which equates to a nine-point head start, but most are rating the All Blacks as eight-point favourites. That just happens to have been the margin of victory the last time they played here, in 2022. Rarely can an eight-point win have looked so uncomfortable. Scotland lost the first 10 minutes 14-0, before scoring 23 unanswered points in the next 50.<\/p>\n
They proceeded to lose the final quarter 17-0. Gregor Townsend was ashen afterwards, wishing out loud that they could play the All Blacks every year but manifestly tortured by the ongoing inability to beat them.<\/p>\n
He is not going into this one cautiously, if leaving out Duhan van der Merwe can be accounted as an overthrow of caution. Scotland\u2019s barnstorming wing is nothing if not bold, but Townsend has chosen to reintroduce the rather more elegant Blair Kinghorn at full-back, now released from his club duties with Toulouse, and shift Kyle Steyn to Van der Merwe\u2019s customary slot on the left wing.<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s Cam Roigard (left) celebrates scoring their fourth try against Ireland last week with Ardie Savea, who will captain the side at Murrayfield. Photograph: Photosport\/INPHO\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Van der Merwe won his 50th cap last weekend in the 85-0 rout of USA<\/a>, scoring two tries, but his long-standing partner on the other wing, Darcy Graham, scored three, thus pulling alongside him, on 34, in their ongoing duel to emerge as Scotland\u2019s top try-scorer. Graham, the yin to Van der Merwe\u2019s yang, half a foot shorter and four stone lighter, has racked up his total in 48 Tests. A try here would move him clear at the top.<\/p>\n But that is the least of Scotland\u2019s concerns. The All Blacks demand the subsumption of everyone into the team ethic. Sione Tuipulotu is back as captain in the midfield, where he is joined by Northampton\u2019s Rory Hutchinson on one side, the talisman Finn Russell on the other. Russell is back from Bath and is joined by Ben White at half-back, released by Toulon. D\u2019Arcy Rae keeps his place at tighthead, having started for the first time last week. Behind him, Scotland are going full physical, Matt Fagerson the relative little \u2019un at 17st, lining up at openside.<\/p>\n New Zealand make three changes to the side that beat Ireland in Chicago last weekend.<\/a> Two of the three Barrett brothers were injured in that one, including captain Scott. So Beauden lines up on his lonesome at fly-half for cap 143. Ardie Savea is captain.<\/p>\n The game of the weekend, though, will take place in Paris, where France<\/strong> and South Africa<\/strong> reprise their extraordinary World Cup quarter-final two years ago. In the week, Fabien Galthi\u00e9 described this Springbok outfit as \u201cperhaps the best that has ever existed\u201d. Nothing lost in translation there.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The world champions do indeed look formidable, making five changes to the team that swept Japan aside at Wembley last weekend. Among them, Eben Etzebeth returns to the engine room to lend his inimitable style of support to captain Siya Kolisi, who wins his 100th cap.<\/p>\n Galthi\u00e9 has raised a few eyebrows by leaving out Gregory Alldritt from the squad altogether. About as many as his sometime captain raised last week, when he left the camp to play for La Rochelle, quipping that he needed \u201ca little bit of love\u201d. Something may or may not have been lost in that translation. Normal captain Antoine Dupont is back in camp, but this is too soon for him after his ruptured ACL in the Six Nations, so Ga\u00ebl Fickou continues, having assumed the captaincy for France\u2019s summer tour of New Zealand.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Ireland<\/strong> welcome back an absent captain of their own, when Caelan Doris lines up at No 8 for the visit to Dublin of Japan<\/strong>, having missed the Lions tour through injury. Jack Crowley continues in the No 10 shirt, while Tom Farrell makes his debut, in the centre, at the age of 32.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is 100 years since Scotland played their first match at Murrayfield, but that is the least of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-555783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115510271415077880","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}