Scotland never got going; Murrayfield never got going; New Zealand did. Scotland have had some agonising defeats here in recent years, as they chase that first win against the All Blacks. This was not one of them. This was dispiritingly routine.
Despite a hat-trick of tries in the first half for Ewan Ashman, the irrepressible hooker, Scotland could not register a point at all in the second. New Zealand cantered away to a tally of seven tries, two for Beauden Barrett who beetled through Scotland’s outside defences with ease, scoring 19 unanswered points in the second half.
“You obviously prepare to try and win games,” said the Scotland head coach, Gregor Townsend. “But it’s more about delivering a performance we can be proud of, that our supporters can be proud of. And it wasn’t there today. So that’s frustrating.”
We always speculate at this time of year whether it is of advantage to the southern-hemisphere teams to arrive in the north fully match fit, or whether they might be fatigued at the end of their season. No question which team was on it for this one. Scotland looked as if they were disconnected, which might be expected in their first outing of the season, but that has not been the case in those agonising defeats at this same time of year in the past. This flop will prove galling.
Whether it will feel so for the north in general, as the devisers of this weird Nations Championship will hope, remains to be seen. There may or may not be much esprit de corps among the teams of the north, but one thing is for sure, the All Blacks and the Springboks look a class apart at the top of the south’s table. Four wins out of four; four bonus points out of four. Two rounds of round-robin to play.
At times tries seemed almost too easy to come by. That applied to Scotland as much as the other way round in the first half, when seven tries were scored, but the home team could not rejoin the party after the break.
There has been a feeling for a while that lineout-and-drives have begun to dominate the modern game – and the directives issued during the off-season targeting defensive players disrupting these have hardly discouraged teams from going for the corner. All but one of those seven first-half tries featured attacking lineouts from penalties kicked to the corner, four of them directly from the subsequent mauls set up.
France rue Ntamack injury
France stormed back to the top of the Northern Hemisphere Nations Championship table with a dominant but flawed 54-17 victory over Fiji on Saturday.
Victory came at a cost, with the fly-half Romain Ntamack, alongside captain Antoine Dupont at half-back for the first time since March 2025, seemingly dislocating his shoulder in the buildup to France’s third try.
With Mathieu Jalibert already out injured, Les Bleus will face world champions South Africa next week without either of their best No 10s.
They will also need to put in a vastly improved showing to stand any chance of avoiding a 10th defeat in their last 11 clashes with the Springboks.
Props Jean-Baptiste Gros and Sipili Falatea, wing Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, centre Kalvin Gourgues, full-back Theo Attissogbe, replacement forward Charles Ollivon and Dupont crossed the whitewash, with a penalty try making it eight scores for the hosts.
They are two points ahead of Ireland in the standings ahead of England’s clash with Australia on Sunday.
Fiji, who started the match with 10 France-based players, including their entire backline, were typically physical but slumped to a fourth straight defeat in the inaugural Nations Championship.
Their much-vaunted backs struggled to fire, although centre Vinaya Habosi beat four defenders to score and Selestino Ravutaumada added a second consolation try. The Top 14’s most prolific finisher, Jiuta Wainiqolo, who was playing in his adopted home, was unable to make an impact, though.
Earlier South Africa strolled past an injury-hit Italy with a 66-7 win in Saturday’s Nations Championship meeting in Turin, where the fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu scored the first of nine Springbok tries and added another 21 points from a perfect kicking display.
South Africa ran in six tries in an utterly dominant opening half. Hooker Malcolm Marx went over twice, adding to scores by Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Morne van den Berg and the captain Siya Kolisi and Damian Willemse, with Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicking all six conversions having opened the scoring with a penalty.
Wilco Louw added another try after the break before Italy finally got off the mark with Federico Ruzza’s try converted by Tommaso Allan. Springbok wing Ethan Hooker ran in the final score on the stroke of full-time. Agencies
Two of Ashman’s tries were from neatly executed Scotland lineouts, and those of Wallace Sititi and Codie Taylor were likewise taken for the All Blacks. The visitors held a three-point lead at the break, despite yellow cards shown to Peter Lakai and Sititi. Scotland were actually penalised more in that period, but New Zealand’s offences were committed during peak pressure.
Ashman’s second try was from open play, following the mandatory penalty to the corner after Lakai’s yellow. Huw Jones was held up, and from the dropout Kyle Steyn broke down one wing, Kyle Rowe down the other, and Ashman hit a fine line off Ben White’s pass.
But New Zealand had the bonus point after half an hour. Their second try had followed some fine interplay down the left between Tupou Vaa’i and Josh Moorby. Cam Roigard took a tap penalty after a chase of Beauden Barrett’s chip ahead, and Ethan de Groot drove over from close range. Their fourth, though, came from another attacking lineout, this one spun wide after a few juicy drives round the fringes, where Damian McKenzie put over the most senior of the game’s three Barretts, Beauden, with sweet timing.
Scotland Rowe (Kinghorn 52); Steyn, Jones, Tuipulotu (capt), Dobie; Russell (Jordan 63), White (Horne 63); Sutherland (Schoeman 32), Ashman (Hiddleston 66), Z Fagerson (Hurd 66), Brown, Cummings, M Fagerson (Bayliss 63), Dempsey (Williamson 52)
Yellow card Tuipulotu 51
Tries Ashman 3 Cons Russell 3
New Zealand B Barrett; Jordan (Ioane 53), Tupaea, J Barrett (Tavatanawai 66), Moorby; McKenzie, Roigard (Ratima 61); De Groot (Bower 50), Taylor (capt; Aumua 56), Newell (Tosi 63), S Barrett, Holland, Vaa’i (Lio-Willie 72), Lakai, Sititi (Segner 56)
Yellow card Lakai 24, Sititi 32
Tries Sititi, De Groot, Taylor, B Barrett 2, Moorby, Aumua Cons McKenzie 4
Scotland badly needed to make the first move after the break. That they did not.
New Zealand pulled away in the third quarter with ease. Novelly, they chose to scrum an attacking penalty and showed how to score off that set piece, too. Scott Barrett’s long pass was gathered by Moorby for a simple run-in. Rugby shouldn’t be made to look so easy.
Worse was to follow for the Scots. The captain, Sione Tuipulotu, was sent to the sin bin, as they continued to infringe with the All Blacks now constantly on the attack. That penalty was sent to the corner, but the All Blacks showed off a prettier interpretation of the attacking lineout, McKenzie looping round Quinn Tupaea to put Beauden Barrett over for the second time.
Murrayfield was silenced, which was bad given there was another half an hour still to play. Asafo Aumua’s try in the final quarter, New Zealand’s seventh, hardly shifted that vibe. Another penalty to touch, another lineout. This one was far enough out to make a drive unrealistic, so they worked the try another way. The throw went long, and Lakai looped blind to send Aumua clean through.
Easy. Too easy. That first win over the All Blacks looks as distant a dream as ever.
