Allan Massie: Wins over Springboks and Wallabies prove we can beat the big teams THE grisly scores of our matches against New Zealand since 2001 have been well publicised, and are easily summed up. In the five games played, we have scored 25 points and the All Blacks 187. The SRU have nevertheless contrived to sell all the tickets for to-morrow. So there will be a full house, even if some think there is little point in the Scotland XV even taking the field. We have all read the "cavemen" rant of the New Zealand journalist who thinks the All Blacks should no longer bother to play Scotland. Mind you, a couple of years ago he was saying much the same thing about Wales - "rubbish" in his opinion. Be that as it may, the match will go on and perhaps Andy Robinson's most important task is to try to get rid of the inferiority complex that we seem to have in relation to New Zealand. It's understandable in view of recent results, odd nevertheless. The fact is that, while we have repeatedly collapsed against the All Blacks, we have, in the years that we have run up this 25-187 deficit, twice beaten South Africa and twice Australia. New Zealand may have been regularly the best in the world over the last decade; nevertheless they have not been that far ahead of the Springboks and the Wallabies, both of whom have beaten them several times. So have France and, while our recent record against the French is not that good, we haven't usually been very far behind them. It's well known that we have never beaten New Zealand, but, going back to more distant times, we have quite often run them close. Unofficially, as it were, we have done more than that. The late Douglas Elliot was very proud of having played in the Scotland XV that beat the New Zealand Army touring team 11-6 in 1946. No caps were awarded for that match, but it was, I think, the only game that NZ side lost on what was described as "a very successful tour of the British Isles." Eight years later, 1954, Elliot captained Scotland against the All Blacks, a match we lost 0-3, the great full back Bob Scott kicking the winning penalty. That match - the first time I saw the All Blacks - was the more remarkable because Scotland had not then won an international since February 1951. I remember Douglas telling me that the 1953-4 All Blacks weren't as good as the Army team. Indeed, they may have been the poorest All Blacks side to tour the northern hemisphere; they were beaten by both Wales and France. However, the next All Blacks, the late Wilson Whineray's 1963-4 side, were outstanding. They lost only one match out of 34 on their tour, and won all their internationals - except the Scotland game, which was a 0-0 draw. Four years later, they won 14-3 at Murrayfield in a game remembered mostly for the sending-off of one of the greatest of All Blacks, Colin Meads. I can still remember the astonished silence that accompanied his slow walk off the field. In an interview with David Ferguson earlier this week, Jim Renwick recalled some of the close matches he was involved in against New Zealand. Injury kept him out of the game in November 1983, which finished in a 25-25 draw. This was the closest we have come to beating the All Blacks, and we would have done so if Peter Dods had converted Jim Pollock's last-minute try from the touchline. But Dods had already kicked five penalties, keeping us in the game. That was one of the few matches in which a New Zealand pack has ever been out-rucked. The Scotland XV that day was more or less the one that went on to win the Grand Slam the following Spring. Its coach was Jim Telfer, who had come close to giving up after coaching the badly mismanaged Lions tour the previous summer. Asked if he thought he had now proved a point, he said, "half a point." The message is clear. You have to be a team capable of winning the northern hemisphere championship to have much chance of beating New Zealand. This was proved again in 1990 when David Sole's Grand Slam team toured. They lost the First Test 16-31, but came very close to winning the second. In the end they went down 18-21, thanks in part to a poor piece of refereeing which gave the All Blacks a vital penalty. Remarkably, Sole's team scored two tries to the All Blacks" one. This was the only time in 28 matches that we have scored more tries than they have. I hate to say it, but in the last five games we have managed only one try - and that was a so-called consolation one by Simon Webster at the tail-end of the 2005 match. Still, nil desperandum and all that. If Celtic can beat Barcelona... well, yes, but the trouble is that it's a darned sight easier to defend for the 90 minutes of a football match than for the 80 of a rugby one. So you have to carry the game to the All Blacks and, to do that, you must master McCaw & Co at the breakdown. This is - to put it mildly - easier said than done.