Scotland V New Zealand - November 15th

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Scotland v New Zealand

Date: Saturday, November 15
Venue: BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh
Kickoff: 17:30 local (GMT)
Referee: Romain Poite (France)
Assistant Referees: Johnny Lacey (Ireland), Stuart Berry (South Africa)
TMO: Gareth Simmonds (Wales)

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Right this isn't one of your GC fancy pants matchday threads, I'm in charge this time.

Had originally considered calling it the 'Kiwi Krushing Kelebration' thread, but realized that'd be an inappropriate acronym...

Now onto the game, normally you'd expect to read about form / head to head here, but for reasons which I'll go onto none of that really matters because this is the year that we will finally beat the All Blacks!

Now what makes me so sure you ask, well quite simply, I've a cast iron, 100% scientific theory that proves that next weekend we will at long last neutralize New Zealand.  

2003 England win the Rugby World Cup - 3 years later they lose at Murrayfield
2007 South Africa win the Rugby World Cup - 3 years later they lose at Murrayfield
2011 New Zealand win the Rugby World Cup - 3 years later...  

Quite simply and to quote Tinie Tempah, it's "written in the stars".

Teams to be announced (not that it matters).

Scotland

15 Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors); 25 caps
14 Sean Maitland (Glasgow Warriors); 14 caps
13 Mark Bennett (Glasgow Warriors), 1 cap
12 Alex Dunbar (Glasgow Warriors); 9 caps
11 Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors); 11 caps
10 Finn Russell (Glasgow Warriors); 3 caps
9 Greig Laidlaw CAPTAIN (Gloucester); 32 caps

1 Alasdair Dickinson (Edinburgh Rugby); 37 caps
2 Ross Ford (Edinburgh Rugby); 78 caps
3 Euan Murray (Glasgow Warriors); 61 caps
4 Richie Gray (Castres); 40 caps
5 Jonny Gray (Glasgow Warriors); 6 caps
6 Rob Harley (Glasgow Warriors); 8 caps
7 Blair Cowan (London Irish); 4 caps
8 Adam Ashe (Glasgow Warriors); 2 caps

16 Fraser Brown (Glasgow Warriors); 1 cap
17 Gordon Reid (Glasgow Warriors); 4 caps
18 Geoff Cross (London Irish); 33 caps
19 Tim Swinson (Glasgow Warriors); 9 caps
20 Johnnie Beattie (Castres); 32 caps
21 Chris Cusiter (Sale Sharks); 68 caps
22 Duncan Weir (Glasgow Warriors); 16 caps
23 Sean Lamont (Glasgow Warriors); 89 caps

New Zealand

15 Ben Smith
14 Colin Slade
13 Malakai Fekitoa
12 Ryan Crotty
11 Charle Piutau
10 Dan Carter
09 TJ Perenara

08 Victor Vito
07 Sam Cane
06 Richie McCaw
05 Dominic Bird
04 Jeremy Thrush
03 Charlie Faumuina
02 James Parsons
01 Joe Moody

16 Dane Coles
17 Wyatt Crockett
18 Ben Franks
19 Luke Romano
20 Liam Messam
21 Augustin Pulu
22 Sonny Bill Williams
23 Julian Savea.

Take the points!

Honestly with 15 to go and us this close I'd be very unhappy if we hadn't opted to kick that

Great game

C'mon Scotland

i think this world cup is going to really shock these SH teams.

they are so used to pounding the NH sides. yet its really not that far apart.

go on scotland!

c'mon laidlaw!

We have been on top of them for the past 10 mins!

Is it the black jerseys??? Why can't refs see all the offside New Zealanders???

Time to make em play in hi viz vests I say!

Jonny and Harley have been immense

its cos they are all offside at the same time so all poite sees is a line...

unfortunately, laidlaw i think couldnt believe he had a kick at 70 mins to put scotland in the lead against the ABs. his body language looked disbelieving.

go on scotland!

forward pass?

nah. pass was ok.

such valiant and quality play by scotland. really great play in the match so far. they should take great confidence from this.

the kiwis look very very rattled.

Hogg's high ball takes have been awful this season - he wasn't even close!

Very clever from Richie - wait for Scotland to retreat the full 10, then call the scrum!

ABs seem to have taken the same approach as the second half against England last week. Retain the ball and keep pressing on. Perhaps the fallback plan for the World cup when things go south. Theyve just shut Scotland out the last 10 minutes. Same as last week.

poite. rhymes with...

seriously, some refs need to strap on a set of decision making equipment.

This has been a great defensive effort from Scotland, not every day you limit the AB's to only two tries.

They showed a lot of guts and determination.

Good effort Scotland. Horrible game as a spectacle but the game has given some NZers valuable experience they wouldnt have expected if not for Hansens 'out there' selection.

Very proud of that, excellent defence, but that was one hell of a missed opportunity - we really were poor in some areas. Let's face it, we didn't come close to score anymore tries

Jonny and Harley immense

Looks like NZ are going to win this game. But it has not been easy for them (NZ).

Will NZ have learnt any thing from this game? that is the question.

I mean hands up how many of you thought NZ get a cricket score against Scotland?

Just like to say well played Scotland.

We're saving our win against them for the world cup next year

Taylorman wrote:ABs seem to have taken the same approach as the second half against England last week. Retain the ball and keep pressing on. Perhaps the fallback plan for the World cup when things go south. Theyve just shut Scotland out the last 10 minutes. Same as last week.

you take whatever positives from it you want. the rest of the NH sides will take great confidence from this. NZ are very very beatable. And i never thought i'd say this. but i just fancy Wales might do it.

I kind of stand by what I said at the beginning, we are not quite ready to beat the AB's yet. I would say though that we got an awful lot closer than I ever thought we would. It was a mark of respect that they had to empty their bench early.

I just loved the way that we kept on coming at them, our second half was so much better than our first, once we stopped being over awed we played them.

Congratulations to everyone on the Scotland team, I am very proud of them!

A bit disappointed we didn't create more but we were competitive, attacked and the players gave their absolute all out there. Special word for the ginger tackle monster. His best game in a Scotland shirt.

quinsforever wrote:

Taylorman wrote:ABs seem to have taken the same approach as the second half against England last week. Retain the ball and keep pressing on. Perhaps the fallback plan for the World cup when things go south. Theyve just shut Scotland out the last 10 minutes. Same as last week.

you take whatever positives from it you want. the rest of the NH sides will take great confidence from this. NZ are very very beatable. And i never thought i'd say this. but i just fancy Wales might do it.

Have you seen the last 2 games by Wales!

Well played Scotland - thought you had em for a bit. NZ just too strong just now..

quinsforever wrote:

Taylorman wrote:ABs seem to have taken the same approach as the second half against England last week. Retain the ball and keep pressing on. Perhaps the fallback plan for the World cup when things go south. Theyve just shut Scotland out the last 10 minutes. Same as last week.

you take whatever positives from it you want. the rest of the NH sides will take great confidence from this. NZ are very very beatable. And i never thought i'd say this. but i just fancy Wales might do it.

Never going to happen, did you see Wales today? rudderless ship in high seas would be the most accurate way of describing them right now, ZERO leaders on or off the field.

tigertattie wrote:We're saving our win against them for the world cup next year

Good plan that!!

Yeah, well played Scotland. Very aggressive and put on a heap of pressure. Didnt really look like scoring a 'constructed' try but neither did the ABs to be fair other than the Thrush try.

BigGee wrote:

quinsforever wrote:

Taylorman wrote:ABs seem to have taken the same approach as the second half against England last week. Retain the ball and keep pressing on. Perhaps the fallback plan for the World cup when things go south. Theyve just shut Scotland out the last 10 minutes. Same as last week.

you take whatever positives from it you want. the rest of the NH sides will take great confidence from this. NZ are very very beatable. And i never thought i'd say this. but i just fancy Wales might do it.

Have you seen the last 2 games by Wales!

yes. but they wont expect to beat the ABs, so they wont feel the same choker pressure as when they play Aus. NZ looked very rattled there. even with SBW and Savea coming off the bench, Scotland looked unintimidated.

As SA found out, NH rugby is not an end of season victory lap any more for the SH teams. Apart from against England apparently

Glowing with pride. Our boys didn't look like they were afraid of the all blacks, they got in their faces, they had a bit of niggle in there and they looked like they felt they had the right to go toe to toe with the best team in the world. How long is it realistically since we've seen that kind of attitude from Scottish players? Yes we made a lot of mistakes, but there is a platform there now and we finally have something to build from. Well played lads

It's great to see Scot pride in their rugby team again. Thats the biggest positive for me out of that game.

I think the No. 10 argument has been settled

Someone on the BBC thread posted that this performance proved categorically that the problems with the Scotland international set up over past 5 years have been poor coaching and poor selection. It's not a lack of available talent.

We've said that on these boards for years, but I'm hoping now that fans from other nations will also start to realize this.

That was certainly a second string ABs side, but it's pointless to focus on this as we could only play the team in front of us and our past performances against NZ meant that we didn't deserve any more respect than that. That Scotland side was stacked full of young players, all playing for each other and without any obvious trepidation. I would have settled for that before the game and I'll settle for that now.

Agree George Carlin, lots of positives to take from this, only real worry from what I have seen was your scrum

Biltong wrote:Agree George Carlin, lots of positives to take from this, only real worry from what I have seen was your scrum

The scrum is one area that can still be improved, several of our better props are still out, but are on the point of return. We are still one decent TH away though, which could open the door to WP Nel for the world cup. Geoff Cross unfortunately is not an international class TH.

I'd say we're still fairly blunt in attack. Sounds strange to say after 5 tries last week, but let's face it Argentina weren't great and better teams wouldn't have been so willing to be cut open.

We didn't look like scoring another try today - not even close really

Disagree on Cross - I thought he did fine tonight, and has done well for us in the past

RDW_Scotland wrote:I'd say we're still fairly blunt in attack. Sounds strange to say after 5 tries last week, but let's face it Argentina weren't great and better teams wouldn't have been so willing to be cut open.

We didn't look like scoring another try today - not even close really

Bennett was a big loss. We did make inroads into them at times even so.

George Carlin wrote:Someone on the BBC thread posted that this performance proved categorically that the problems with the Scotland international set up over past 5 years have been poor coaching and poor selection. It's not a lack of available talent.

We've said that on these boards for years, but I'm hoping now that fans from other nations will also start to realize this.  

That was certainly a second string ABs side, but it's pointless to focus on this as we could only play the team in front of us and our past performances against NZ meant that we didn't deserve any more respect than that. That Scotland side was stacked full of young players, all playing for each other and without any obvious trepidation. I would have settled for that before the game and I'll settle for that now.

That's exactly where I am at as well. They were worried and emptied the bench a lot earlier than they planned. The best thing for me is that we played better in the second half than the first and for the whole 80 mins. I hope we are n longer seen as a soft touch from here on in!

TJ wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:I'd say we're still fairly blunt in attack. Sounds strange to say after 5 tries last week, but let's face it Argentina weren't great and better teams wouldn't have been so willing to be cut open.

We didn't look like scoring another try today - not even close really

Bennett was a big loss.  We did make inroads into them at times even so.

At least it was a hamstring and not his knee. He will be back, older wiser and a better player for the experience.

Russell will have learnt a lot from this as well - as will others.

I also think Dunbar isn't fit - he was dissapointing again, fairly anonymous, especially in attack where he was non existent..

RDW_Scotland wrote:Disagree on Cross - I thought he did fine tonight, and has done well for us in the past

He is the best of the rest at the moment, but I don't think he wold be in the squad if Welsh or Cussack were fit. It is slightly worrying that he has gone down to LI and is struggling to hold down a squad place there as well, which kind of suggests that it was not just down to Solomon's view of him. The scrum was not solid today, even more so when Murray went off. A good TH has to be able to anchor the scrum and that is just not happening. When you consider how good our line out was today, our scrum was disappointing. It needs to be improved.

Quins - best you move on.

Biltong wrote:Agree George Carlin, lots of positives to take from this, only real worry from what I have seen was your scrum

In the same way that Wagner's music is a lot better than it sounds, Bilt, our scrum is a lot better than it appears. Scotland's best scrummaging SQ tightheads are Jon Welsh and Michael Cusack (both of whom were unavailable) and when Murray went off, we were unexpectedly in the poop somewhat. We have some good young options coming through to fill the gap over the next 5 years and hopefully one or both of Welsh and the Coo will be there in time for the RWC.

I see that we're already getting patronizing guff from the NZ Herald about NZ being bad, rather than Scotland playing well although at least the Walking Testicle thought to post in his risible copy that this Scotland set up has the makings of "a decent side". Feck me five ways until Friday, that's almost a compliment.

Fair call RDW

I'm surprised Scots are so upbeat. That was the worst New Zealand performance in a long time. Scotland will never get a better chance than that to beat them but they made so many mistakes.

BigGee wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:Disagree on Cross - I thought he did fine tonight, and has done well for us in the past

He is the best of the rest at the moment, but I don't think he wold be in the squad if Welsh or Cussack were fit. It is slightly worrying that he has gone down to LI and is struggling to hold down a  squad place there as well, which kind of suggests that it was not just down to Solomon's view of him. The scrum was not solid today, even more so when Murray went off. A good TH has to be able to anchor the scrum and that is just not happening. When you consider how good our line out was today, our scrum was disappointing. It needs to be improved.

Welsh is still fairly unproven as an international tighthead, and cusak hasn't played in 18 months or something like that.

Agree that the LI move hasn't gone well for him though.