Gregor Townsend ‘can’t wait’ to face All Blacks after Scotland thrash USA

Gregor Townsend admitted he “can’t wait” for another crack at New Zealand next weekend after his Scotland side kicked off their autumn series with an emphatic 85-0 victory over the United States.

The Scots ran in 13 tries – seven in the first half and six after the break – to rack up their biggest-ever victory at Murrayfield.

Duhan van der Merwe scored a double on his 50th cap, while Darcy Graham grabbed a hat-trick to move level with his Edinburgh colleague at the top of Scotland’s all-time scoring charts on 34 tries.

Jamie Dobie also notched a treble, while Dylan Richardson, George Horne, Stafford McDowall, Kyle Rowe and Ollie Smith went over the line as the Scots limbered up for the All Blacks by swatting their American visitors aside.

“Obviously we had more ball than we probably would get normally against a top 10 team,” said head coach Townsend.

“I thought the effort was outstanding. Of course next week will be a different opposition, one of the top teams in the world, but what we worked on in training, we got that out on the pitch so it’s a good start to the campaign.

“Everybody’s aware of the step up next week. We obviously know New Zealand are going to test us in different ways than the USA weren’t able to do.”

Scotland have never beaten the All Blacks but they ran them close in each of their previous two meetings under Townsend in 2017 and 2022.

“I can’t wait, actually,” said Townsend of next Saturday’s match. “We don’t get to play them that often and we’ve only played them twice in my time and they were both great occasions, very good games.

“We know we have to be close to our best to win, but that’s what we’ll be working on in training this week. I did feel that in terms of how the squad prepared, even in the pouring rain on Wednesday, you could tell that there’s an edge, that there’s more leadership coming out from our players.

“The players are driving a lot of what we’re doing in training, so that’ll have to happen next week and we’ll have to have the players driving our performance in those 80 minutes.”

Townsend also revealed that he expects Glasgow forwards Zander Fagerson and Rory Darge and Northampton prop Elliot Millar Mills to be fit after their recent injury issues.

“Zander trained last week, he did all that was asked of him,” said Townsend. “He did live rugby on Wednesday and he was a big part of that.

“Rory had a really good session on Friday and I was watching him closely, so I think he’s going to be passed to train fully next week. And Elliot Millar Mills looks like he’ll be passed fit to train next week too, so I’m hoping that we have a full squad to select from when we do it on Sunday or Monday night.”