History suggests blackout

Black and blue. That could describe the state of a few Scottish bodies after their bruising midweek encounter with the Samoans. Those are also the colours of two countries whose rugby cultures are umbilically linked.

New Zealand and Scotland meet again at Murrayfield tomorrow night. The Scots will be back in their tangerine shirts but there is also a black streak in there. Three of their players are New Zealand-born, and the loss of a fourth, the injured centre John Leslie, has put a black cloud over Scotland's preparations for the quarter-finals.

Ian McGeechan, the Scotland coach-in-waiting, once described New Zealanders as "Scots who had discovered how to win". As the century draws to a close, this is uncomfortably apt. In 20 times of trying since New Zealand won in Inverleith in 1905 the Scots have never finished as winners. No wonder the All Blacks were looking so relaxed as they gladhanded the local press in their Edinburgh hotel on Thursday night, whereas across town earlier in the day the Scottish assistant coach John Rutherford had been talking about the "fear factor".

Rutherford, who in 1983 was a member of a Scottish side that managed a 25-25 draw with the All Blacks, said: "It is the fear of making mistakes that will drive us on. When you play the All Blacks you never feel you can relax as you can do against some other sides. They have outstanding players in every position. We can do it, but we have to get everything absolutely right."

Jim Telfer, the Scotland coach for whom the past and present suggest this will be his last match in charge, has based his rugby philosophy on the New Zealand style. He admires their ball skills, their quick-rucking style, their almost pathological desire to win.

But the question for this attractive Scottish team is whether they themselves actually believe they can reverse the tide of history tomorrow. When Glenn Metcalfe, their New Zealand-born full back, talked after the defeat of Samoa of the "unbelievable challenge" of facing the All Blacks, he almost had to stop himself from talking up the opposition.

Australia play today with a South African in their back row, and it is no fault of Metcalfe or of his fellow New Zealanders Martin Leslie and Gordon Simpson, or of a Scottish management with limited resources, but it has to be said that the lack of indigenous Scots in this side has contributed to the apathy north of the border that led to Wednesday's crowd of 15,661.

There is a fevered debate in Scotland about Scottishness, triggered by the inclusion of the Jamaica-born David Johnson in the football squad, and whereas Scotland's rugby supporters could identify with the side that began the decade with a grand slam they are not warming to a team which also includes a Channel Islander.

Scotland supporters are conservative and they have turned their backs on a tournament in which the Scottish Rugby Union has been savaged for its lack of an imaginative ticketing and promotional policy that could have prevented the embarrassing gaps in the stands.

Against this backdrop, Telfer somehow has to persuade his vibrant side that the All Blacks are human and that Scotland's New Zealanders are as good as the opposition's. And if this game between the Five Nations champions and the Tri-Nations champions does not fill Murrayfield to bursting, something really is rotten in Scottish rugby.

The Teams

SCOTLAND: G Metcalfe; C Murray, A Tait, J Mayer, K Logan; G Townsend, G Armstrong (capt); T Smith, G Bulloch, P Burnell, S Murray, D Weir, M Leslie, B Pountney, G Simpson. Replacements: J McLaren, D Hodge, B Redpath, B Mather, S Grimes, G Graham, R Russell.

NEW ZEALAND: J Wilson, T Umaga, C Cullen, A Ieremia, J Lomu, A Mehrtens, J Marshall, C Hoeft, A Oliver, C Dowd, R Brooke, N Maxwell, R Thorne, J Kronfeld, T Randell (capt). Replacements: D Gibson, T Brown, B Kelleher, A Blowers, R Willis or I Jones, K Meeuws, M Hammett.