Scots believe they can beat All Blacks after routing US in record win

Scotland's players now believe they can beat New Zealand for the first time ever, says head coach Gregor Townsend, after his side started their autumn campaign with a record win over the United States.

Darcy Graham and Jamie Dobie both scored hat-tricks as the Scots ran in 13 tries to blow away the Americans 85-0 in what was their biggest ever win in 100 years of playing at Murrayfield.

Now attention turns to Saturday's showdown with the All Blacks in Edinburgh, with Scotland aiming to record a first victory in the fixture at the 33rd attempt.

The Scots lost by eight points in 2022, five in 2017, and eight again three years before that.

"It's a huge match. This game has been sold out for a while. Everyone loves watching the All Blacks," Townsend told BBC Scotland.

"We've had two cracking matches against them [in recent years], but not delivered that winning performance. All these experiences, today included, have to be put into an 80-minute performance.

"The players can take confidence from how well they've trained this week. We have to build that cohesion pretty quickly. There's no reason why we can't. The guys will be up for it and have the belief they can do it."

With the USA match falling outside the designated Test window, Scotland were without key players such as Finn Russell, Blair Kinghorn and Ben White, but were ruthless in the fashion they dismantled their opponents.

Darcy Graham and Jamie Dobie both scored hat-tricks and Duhan Van der Merwe helped himself to two tries on his 50th cap. Dylan Richardson, Kyle Rowe, Stafford McDowall, George Horne, and Ollie Smith also scored.

"Straight away, the players were very cohesive, which is hard to achieve in a week's training," Townsend said.

"We asked for effort and physicality and we got that for most of the game. We were aggressive and disciplined in the main and the players worked hard for each other.

"We know next week will be a much bigger challenge and the team will be much-changed too."