Scotland v New Zealand: All Blacks deny Scotland historic victory

The history of this fixture suggests Scotland need a near-perfect performance, while the visitors also hope to have an off day.

Things didn’t turn out that way, but the show was sensational.

Scotland fought bravely in close quarters – particularly on their own line – but gave up two soft tries as a result of poor defending further up the field.

Just three minutes later, a towering Josh Lord burst through a large gap in a pile and nonchalantly lobbed the ball towards scrum-half Roigard.

That took the wind out of the crowd and Murrayfield were silenced again at half-time when Scotland were caught napping and Sititi cleared Jordan.

But the atmosphere changed completely as Gregor Townsend’s team came out of the break looking like a man.

Ashman recovered after a strong rush from the pack and Savea was sent to the bin for an infraction during that charge.

Russell then went out to find Steyn and the winger, who preferred Duhan van der Merwe, featured in this 14th international trial.

The noise from the crowd was deafening as White was stopped briefly and Schoeman had the ball stripped from him on the whitewash, while Graham was unable to continue stretching as he reached the line.

Scotland continued to push forward and Russell took the penalty to keep the game level.

The home team had all the momentum as Sititi took a deliberate shot, but most importantly, they couldn’t get their noses ahead.

New Zealand got a second wind when they returned a full squad and the strength of the bench on the field.

Blair Kinghorn appeared to be in time to put McKenzie into touch but he managed to get off the ball and deflect it.

McKenzie attempted a woeful conversion but then put the game beyond Scotland in the closing moments with a monster long-range penalty.