Scotland v All Blacks: Five takeaways as ‘smiling assassin’ Damian McKenzie kills Scottish dreams in ‘freakish fashion’
All Blacks star Damian McKenzie and an inset of Scotland's Darcy Graham.
Following the All Blacks’ 25-17 victory over Scotland at Murrayfield, here are our takeaways from the Autumn Nations Series epic.
The top line
At half-time, this looked destined to be a one-sided thrashing from the All Blacks as Scott Robertson’s side led 17-0 courtesy of tries from Cam Roigard and Will Jordan.
Despite what the scoreline suggested at the time, the Scots did threaten the New Zealanders’ line but were twice repelled by some defensive dark arts while the All Blacks, playing in white, showed their ruthlessness, exploiting some soft Scottish defence brilliantly.
Josh Lord cantered through the napping Scotland defence from a midfield ruck and drew both Blair Kinghorn and Finn Russell in before he sent Roigard charging over the line, while Jordan extended the visitors’ lead after a Beauden Barrett penalty after a stunning one-two with Leicester Faingaʻanuku.
Staring down the barrel of a whipping, Scotland responded stunningly in the second half and used their rolling maul to finally open their account, doing so through Ewan Ashman, with Ardie Savea sent to the sin bin for illegally attempting to stop the maul.
Scotland doubled their account soon after as Kyle Steyn, who was controversially selected over Duhan van der Merwe, latched onto a long pass from Kinghorn to jog over the line with Russell’s conversion making it a three-point game.
Russell levelled the scores as Murrayfield erupted into a roar of hope but ultimately, the dream of seeing their men finally get one over the mighty All Blacks was crushed by New Zealand’s smiling assassin, Damian McKenzie.
The All Blacks ace, who was an early second-half replacement for the injured Caleb Clarke, freakishly shrugged off attempted tackles and acrobatically placed the ball on the line without brushing the touchline.
He scuffed the conversion, and badly, giving the home crowd a bit more hope, but as they say, it is the hope that kills you, as the smiling assassin put the final nail in the coffin with two minutes left to play.
The result means that New Zealand have continued their unbeaten run against the Scots to 33 Test matches (31 wins, 2 draws) and remain unbeaten at Murrayfield.
The worst of the All Blacks rears its ugly head again
As much as Scotland deserve credit for the manner in which they fought back into the game, Robertson will be fuming as the same issues that have plagued their year reared their ugly heads again.
Their work under the high ball was disgraceful. For all his wonderful attacking ability, Jordan’s aerial ability is the only thing stopping him from comfortably being the best full-back in the world. Right now, it’s still a debate.
He was not alone in this regard, though, as wingers Clarke and Leroy Carter looked incapable of catching a high ball with any kind of pressure on them. The outlawing of the escort lines has hit the All Blacks hard and, frankly, for far too long for a team of their calibre. A fix is needed now.
Then came the discipline as referee Nic Berry issued early Christmas cards to Carter, Savea and Wallace Sititi, with only the stand-in skipper’s one being somewhat acceptable. Savea was yellow-carded for illegally attempting to stop the Scottish maul. That close to the line, you can’t blame the back-rower for rolling the dice.
However, Carter’s card was simply brainless, though, as he stuck out his leg like a lazy centre back after he got nutmegged; the kind of challenge that would have given Stuart Hogg PTSD after his telling off from Nigel Owens in 2015. While New Zealand won that sin-binning period, it was simply unnecessary and brainless.
Then came Sititi. Perhaps one of the best All Blacks on the day, other than McKenzie, as the 2024 World Rugby Breakthrough Player of the Year threw his one hand at the ball in an attempt to intercept. We had an example that going one-handed for a catch is entirely possible, a stunner from Jack Dempsey, but Sititi knew the risks that come with what he was doing and did it anyway.
The three yellow cards were nicely spaced out, meaning that at no point were the All Blacks down to 13 men, but it did mean that they played 30 of the 80 minutes with 14 men. They got away with it on Saturday but they won’t always.
Brave Scotland
Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve will be the words most used by the passionate Murrayfield faithful as they exited the stands gutted that once again Scotland fell oh so short of beating the All Blacks.
But frankly, Gregor Townsend’s men deserve a bit more praise than that after producing a glorious comeback second-half performance led by the likes of Gregor Brown, Sione Tuipulotu, Dempsey and Scott Cummings in particular.
As per usual, Dempsey topped the carry count for the men in blue, racking up 18 in total, gaining 110 running metres in doing so, twice the next best tally in the match by Jordan.
The 24-year-old Brown again showed why he is so highly regarded with an abrasive and aggressive performance all across the park while Cummings continued his late British and Irish Lions form.
It was a brave, brave Scottish effort as they overturned a 17-point deficit but they just simply didn’t have enough in the tank to get the job done.
Unfortunately, it does leave a taste of disappointment as one cannot help but wonder what could’ve been had Finn Russell not been strapped up like a mummy, or Graham hadn’t compounded errors or had finished off at least one of his two big try scoring opportunities. Would Duhan van der Merwe have finished those two off? We will never know.
The All Blacks were the big one for Scotland this November, but having fallen short, Townsend will be demanding wins against Argentina and Tonga.
All Blacks dark arts on their goal-line
Twice in the first half, Scotland had got within a metre of scoring, and twice the All Blacks dragged them over the line and secured a goal-line drop-out.
The law formally adopted from July 2022 was aimed at “encouraging attacking variety, while also increasing ball-in-play time, as the kick, which must be taken without delay, replaces a scrum”, but coaches always find a way to use the new laws to their advantage, and the All Blacks did precisely that here.
On both occasions, Scotland weren’t going through the pick and drive motion but instead attempting to keep the attacking play going, but both times they were dragged over the line. Graham, admittedly, seemed to grab an extra roll, which opened the door for Savea to flop him on his back and hold him.
This is absolutely not how the law was intended to be used, but New Zealand have turned it into a real weapon in their defensive system, having used it several times throughout this year.
The question then is, if other teams follow suit and roll the dice with dragging the attacker over the line in the manner that New Zealand do, should the law be binned or should a tweak be included that if the defender drags the ball carrier over that it is a scrum instead?
DMac to the rescue
Savea was sensational. Peter Lakai, Sititi and Faingaʻanuku, too, but ultimately, Robertson needed a hero and got it through the smallest All Black on the pitch, McKenzie.
Forced onto the pitch early after Clarke’s head thundered into Steyn’s hip, McKenzie was a small improvement under the high ball for the All Blacks but delivered three clutch plays that shifted the narrative from a shock collapse and first-ever New Zealand loss to Scotland, to a nip and tuck victory.
He worked his socks off to provide Faingaʻanuku an offloading option and somehow managed to fend off the far bigger frame of Kinghorn, shunting the Scotsman into the turf while simultaneously contorting his body to hammer the ball down in the corner. That try put his side back into the lead. All this came after he nailed a stunning 50:22 to get his team into the danger zone.
While he won’t be smiling about his conversion attempt but he was grinning from ear to ear, and probably with some blood in his mouth as if he lost a fight with a feral cat, when dissecting the posts for the three points that ended all hope for the Scots.
His performance will once again raise the debate over whether he or Barrett should be the starting ten, but he proved again how valuable a quality replacement is in the modern game.
READ MORE: Explained: Why the All Blacks were playing in white jerseys against Scotland at Murrayfield
