By Graham Bean
Gregor Townsend admitted it would have been 鈥渄evastating鈥 to lose to the M膩ori All Blacks given his Scotland side had led the match from the 10th minute in New Zealand. They were 29-12 ahead early in the second half but the hosts – who beat Japan last week – cut the lead to three points and pummelled the Scottish line in the final stages. Townsend鈥檚 side held on to claim a 29-26 victory and make a winning start to their Pacific tour. It was the third time they had played the M膩ori and the first time they had beaten them. Each side scored four tries and three conversions but Adam Hastings鈥 penalty ended up being the difference in a hugely physical contest which saw Scotland lose Ben Muncaster and Gregor Brown to injury. The latter will miss next week’s game against Fiji. Harry Paterson, George Horne and Arron Reed notched first-half tries to put the Scots in the driving seat and Horne scored again in the second half. The M膩ori鈥檚 tries came from Sam Nock (after 39 seconds), Isaia Walker-Leawere, Kurt Eklund and Gideon Wrampling. 鈥淭he Maori are a quality side and I suppose we decided to put a team out tonight that wasn’t as experienced knowing that it’ll be a great development and learning experience for them,鈥 said Townsend. 鈥淏ut we also wanted to win this game and we’re so pleased that we did and with how we set that win up in the first half – how clinical we were. And then the pressure around set-piece and our defensive effort at the end saw us through. So, we’re really pleased that the tour starts on a positive. 鈥淭he players who haven’t played that much for Scotland and players that were coming back from injury were able to be part of a winning side.鈥 Into the latter category came the likes of Ollie Smith, Andy Onyeama-Christie, Cam Henderson and Harry Paterson who have had disrupted seasons at club level. All impressed in Whang膩rei, and so too did Rory Hutchinson, Reed and Josh Bayliss who have been in and out of the team in recent years. There were also first Scotland appearances for Fin Richardson, Fergus Burke and Alexander Masibaka and the latter was unfortunate to be yellow-carded shortly after coming on. 鈥淭he good thing is we found a way to win,鈥 added Townsend. 鈥淚 think it was probably beyond expectations – knowing what the Maori did last week in Japan and how strong they’ve been against touring teams – that we were so far ahead. And we knew that they would come back and they got an opportunity and went through a number of phases, got back into the game and it looked like they had the momentum at the end. 鈥淲e’re delighted because that could easily have ended up with them winning with the pressure they had on us in the 22, and it would have been a really disappointing and devastating to lose at the end having led for so long, so we’re so glad we saw it through.鈥 Scotland lost Muncaster in the first half and Brown in the second and the pair will now be assessed. 鈥淏en was a dead leg that just seized up so that’ll be one to manage,鈥 said Townsend. 鈥淲e travel to Fiji on Sunday so he’s probably not going to get that great an opportunity with the flights and travel to recover for Monday, but we’ll see how he is when we get back into training Tuesday and Wednesday. 鈥淕regor unfortunately ran into Alex Masibaka and was removed with a concussion. I don’t know whether it’ll be the 12-day or the seven-day protocol. I’ll have to get the medics to update me on that but he’ll be out for next week for sure.鈥