Scotland vs All Blacks @ 2.30pm Sunday 11 Nov Murrayfield

Why have the AB's not been pinged for off the feet?

plus a red card

New Zealand being clinical in the Scottish 22 is the difference in this game, too many wasted chances by Scotland - but they are creating those chances against the worlds' best.

Stupid mistakes, hopeless lineouts, should have scored..

What a try for Savea!

22-42 before conversion.

rennie dislocated shoulder damn

What a lovely well worked try

Oh dear not a yellow. Now we'll have to put up with weeks of awop whining.

Hint of an obstruction?

Still, brilliant kick and finish

22 - 42

Frustrating Scotland aren't getting those little details right, because they have been the better side since half-time.

And it's 8-5 to New Zealand since half-time. New Zealand, to be fair, absorb all that pressure and produce a try from nothing! Ruthless.

New Zealand will win this game handily and deservedly, but its been in no way one-sided. Scottish fans may well be quite encouraged.

Scotland have been very impressive today and have more than played their part in a very entertaining match.

Are these pictures being done by the Dan Carter Fan Club or what? Talk about hogging the camera!

Definitely a few Lions in the Scottish pack going by this performance. I always felt Laidlaw and Visser would be tourists so not much need to point them out.

Jaysus, the AB's have made 100 tackles to Scotlands 59. Thats very impressive.

Cari wrote:Are these pictures being done by the Dan Carter Fan Club or what? Talk about hogging the camera!

along with the rest of the stats they show they should include camera time

22-44 with 13 minutes or so to go.

Jackson's looking biblical these days.

I think there'll be quite a few Scots on the Lions tour, which is nice

Cari wrote:Jackson's looking biblical these days.

I think there'll be quite a few Scots on the Lions tour, which is nice

Yes I'm sure some of the back room staff will be scottish

Where were the tickets there???

The AB's have made more handling errors in this match than i have seen for a long time. Credit to Scotland for forcing these errors.

one more try, to ship 30 points against NZ would leave me a very happy man

I think the ABs could have the last say Neily...

Auto correct changed ruckers to tickets!

Whatever the final score, Scotland can take alot out of this match. Three try's against the AB's is no mean feat.

Carter again

Scotland need a better defence

22 - 49

Cari wrote:I think the ABs could have the last say Neily...

Aye but one can hope!

I was wondering WTF you were on about there Clive!

...and there it is. Great try for Smith.

22 - 51

Dan Carter hogging the camera again, well he's MOTM.

Looks like only Kelly brown can actually tackle for Scotland.

Nice effort from Scotland but absolutely shocking defence bar KB.

and 606, doh!

but New Zealand are sensational, I have no problem we've got trounced, I expected it, I'm delighted with the fact we have 3 tries.

Dan Carter MoM, hmmm I thought McCaw really should've won that one, he knows more dark arts than Voldemort!

Scotland being brave and choosing the tap and go penalty...well, they might as well go hell for leather.

Cracking match, best of the weekend along with France v Australia

FT 22-51. Well done Scotland. You've come a long way since the Six Nations. Looking forward to next year.

ABs superb as usual. I'm dreading the Welsh game!

Scotland the first team to score three tries against the All Blacks this year (so says John Inversnail).

In fact, this is the first time New Zealand have conceded three tries since the last game of the 2011 Tri Nations - that's 13 games, including the World Cup.

Congrats Scotland - good game.

Great effort by Scotland, most enjoyable game this weekend.

Tough game, made a decent fist of it though.

New Zealand were utterly brilliant in moments but Scotland didn't help themselves with silly errors around the restarts or at the line-out.

The front-five played well with particular mentions for Grant and Gray, the others all contributed well throughout. Shame to lose Rennie so early, looked a bad one, but the back-row competed for 80 minutes and Denton showed flashes of his carrying ability.

Backs gave it a fair crack but never really looked like they were going to cut open the All Black's defense. On a couple occasions they seems to create fleeting glimpses of light out wide but all to often it was smothered in black very promptly. Blair looked sharp, Hogg was solid at the back for the most part and Visser did well to find himself a couple tries.

Hopefully Rennie will be the only casualty and they can give next week a good lash, we should be confident that we can turn over South Africa.

A lot of this match sums up the weekend for me.

Matches these days tend to be won by sides that can break the line- usually out wide. Scotland from what I recall had 67% territory and 57% possession- alarming stats against a side/result like this but not an uncommon stat for the AB's- many of their matches are won despite losing territory/ possession stats. They just do more with the ball.

But as usual the forward exchanges were basically even, if anything Scotland gaining the upper hand, and as with most of this weekend matches, the differences were the attacks out wide, NZ varying up and making the most of the ball it got.

Have to admit Carter was at his very best- he hasnt broken the line and stepped like that for years. The Scots inside backline didnt get up on the AB's early enough and that lead to the holes.

But the weekends matches have highlighted for me one thing. Matches based on a strong forward pack, matching it at the breakdowns and most of all tight defence will always give you a chance in any test match these days.

However, its not enough to dominate them. The level of backplay in world rugby in terms of quick passing, variations in attack, individual and intuitive skills and just as importantly, combinations, is lacking in general.

Scotland had so much ball that other than grunt it up and take a couple of fortunate situations where the ball spilled into their hands, they were unable to penetrate, often going side to side, just not knowing or having the ability to convert possessio into yardage.

The subtle skills, sleight of hand stuff (DC all night and Weepu's pass to Jane and then inside to Hore, the hand-offs), the quick passing to jane in the corner- back to basic schoolboy lessons where the ball will always beat the man, was hardly there all weekend until this match.

As much as is the perception that forwards win matches, well so do backs, and the general level of skill the modern game is sadly lacking in terms of the level and focus on it.

Not to detract from Scotlands effort where in the minutes both before and after half time they got a roll on and with a bit nore of a roll could have got back into it.

Still think they could have kicked one or two of those penalies when 15 behind to get inside 14 points and not taking advantage of the penalties from those allowed NZ to get involved in the game.

The silly kick off mistakes didnt hep either.

Fun match though. Great to see DC back to his best. Weepu also stood out, Kerr Barlow was a bit error prone initially but he'll come right- he's a have a go type of player so just needs to settle.

Vissers efforts were great and I thought Richie Gray was inspirational, much as Ive seen OConnell of Ireland in some matches.

Scotland showed a lot more than I expected them to. The fact that in the previous three meetings against the All Blacks Scotland had scored only nine points shows how well we did today to score 22. It's also pleasing to see that Visser looks like he'll be more than capable of making the step-up to international rugby. It'll be easier to assess this result once we've seen how Wales do against the ABs.

Now for the downsides:

Our back-line is still almost completely ineffectual. Crabbing across the field in the way we have been for a few years will not provide tries. Next week I expect to see Lamont and Visser come off their wings and into midfield a lot more - we need this to happen to compensate for a relatively small set of centres. Whilst Laidlaw didn't do too much wrong I hope Robinson tries him at scrum-half with Jackson at stand-off for the Tonga game.

We committed suicide with those free kicks from botched re-starts. I think two or three All Black tries came from it - hardly surprising considering how much space a scrum in that position affords a team.

Ford needs to be benched sooner rather than later. His throwing in was once again exposed today and I don't really think you can argue the other aspects of his game make up for it. Except for a few defensively howlers, Cross had a fairly decent all-round game although could be exposed by the 'boks next week.

Hamilton did very little but concede penalties today so talk of him as captain should be put to bed until he is guaranteed to spend 80 minutes on the pitch. Strokosch had the better game than Brown today so I expect Robinson to start both next week, although this may mean moving Brown to open-side to accommodate Denton, who has to start.

Nice Tman. I think Argentina showed some deft touches as well and showed the importance of the offload in the modern game with defences as they are. But Jane's try in particular was beautiful handling and a great example of the ball always beats the man like you say.

I wonder how much Carter was inhibited by his calf injury early this year? He really did seem to be running freely and it's true we haven't seen his stepping for a while.

Scotland's tries from Visser were against the run of play so Scotland still needs to work on their backline but at least they have players who look to have the goods. They just need confidence that comes from playing together regularly.

Yeah thats the DC we've really missed and Ive been critical of him recently for exactly what he showed tonight. Although he maintains a high standard generally he's done nothing like this in a couple of years. The two tries Visser scored were typical of those the ABs let through- I dont think any side matches the numbers of intercepts against us as we're too busy trying to get to the other end.

Pity McCaws hude turnover actually resulted in Vissers second as I thought that was superb. Ellison caught out terribly with that one.

I thought that was harsh as in my mind a ruck had formed as he was on the deck but the Scottish player was allowed to come through alone and kick at the ball.

Where Richie McCaw legitimately got the turnover we were penalised.

Should point out that I was generally happy with the ref today.

Well first of all I just want to say how incredible it was to watch a performance like that from Dan Carter - he was simply inspirational and is still by far and away the best 10 in the world by a long shot. Yes we made it easy for him at times, but his stepping, passing, vision and kicking were superb - that cross field kick was just ridiculously perfect.

So on to Scotland - and even though we shipped 50 points I'm relatively happy! For Scotland to score 3 tries against anyone is amazing, against he ABs is unbelievable! Our defence was pretty poor though, not taking anything away from NZs breathtaking attacking play.

Positives

We scored 3 tries against the ABs!!!!!

We scored 3 tries against anyone!!!

Forwards really fronted up and went toe to toe with the ABs 8.

Richie Gray was superb - glad to see playing for a losing Sale team hasn't affected his form

Denton showed everyone why he should be starting - we need his ball carrying

Denton and Gray wouldn't look out of place in the AB team

Geoff Cross was surprisingly good considering he's hardly payed much for Edinburgh so far and has been crap every time he has!

In Ryan Grant we have a long term replacement for Chunk

Visser keeps scoring tries - great support play and pace for the interception try

Mike Blair had a good game and didn't go off injured for the first time in a long time


Negatives

Very soft defence - Carter stepped Laidlaw at least 3 times. Scotland are good against big teams running right at them - SA, England - but poor against teams with step and guile. Our wide defence is a constant source of frustration for me - Visser missing that tackle because he was standing so deep and narrow. It's obviously coached and just doesn't work to be so narrow - he got skinned on the outside.

Ford's throwing was still dodgy. There were also some poor decisions in the lineout - chosing to go to the back to Brown after just messed up a previous throw sums it up. Kellock improved things.

Backs are still toothless

Stupid mistakes from restarts - being in front of the kicker is unforgivable.

We had plenty position at the start of that 2nd half but didn't quite get the 4th try.



So all in all plenty positives, and much better than the last time!


p.s. the booing does my nut in - it's mainly kids and there's not a lot you can do about it.

There was a lot to be positive about from a Scottish POV, but also a number of things that need work, not going to go into them as I think RDW has coverd most already.

Regarding the booing, didn't hear any apart from during the conversions, which was a joke. It's been slipping into the Murrayfield crowd for a few years now and it's very disappointing, whats worse is that its the only time there was any real atmosphere, which again is disappointing, but again has been that way for a number of years.

Match atmosphere was cracking today! Thoroughly enjoyable game and as I said to the Mrs "I don't go to this match in the hope of winning, I go in the hope that I get to see the best team in the world being sublime", and how awesome was Dan Carter?

In terms of Scotlands performance, to be fair it's going to take some time for the Edinbugger lads to catch up to Matt Taylor's defence systems but still I felt sometimes we tackled too high and bounced off but then when we went low they offloaded effectively - how do you defend against that? double tackle? one high one low? But then that creates space elsewhere and BAM! Try time!

Visser has 3 caps and 4 trys? Not bad... Maybe 2 trys against the all blacks will make Gatland sit up and notice! However he did have a couple of defensive howlers which he definitely needs work on!

Denton looked good when he came on, I'd be inclined to bring Barclay in at 7, shift Brown and drop Strokosch despite him not having done much wrong (poor lad but we do need an actual openside and also Denton's go-forward-like-an-out-of-control-ox thing he has going...)

Blair was awesome too.

The booing is totally pointless too - you'd maybe understand it in a close game against the English but why boo DC after the ABs had just scored an incredible try?

What changes would people like to see before South Africa?

I'd be tempted by Murray for Cross, to really have a go at their scrum.

Start Denton and bring Barclay onto the bench, we need his ball carrying.

Maybe bring Dunbar onto the bench, at least he run straight.

Glasgow's defense was terrible at the start of the season but then tightened up and is currently 2nd best in the league. Hopefully with a bit more time, Taylor can improve on today's performance.

Shame we had them first up, we'd have stood a better chance after 4 weeks together. Definitely a step in the right direction though.

RDW_Scotland wrote:The booing is totally pointless too - you'd maybe understand it in a close game against the English but why boo DC after the ABs had just scored an incredible try?

It did help to put Giteau off...

RDW_Scotland wrote:The booing is totally pointless too - you'd maybe understand it in a close game against the English but why boo DC after the ABs had just scored an incredible try?

lol- its ok v the english but not against anyone else!1 jeasus what a ridiculas POV you have