It may partly be down to an additional game in their schedule allowing him more leeway in terms of giving all of his squad an opportunity to play on this tour, but All Blacks coach Steve Hansen gave every indication of having genuinely developed renewed respect for Scotland as he named his side for tomorrow’s Test at Murrayfield.

A decade has passed since Scotland aroused Kiwi ire by playing a second team against them in a World Cup pool match so, an All Black management team which included Hansen reckoned, undermining their preparations for the knockout stages in which they suffered their earliest ever tournament exit. In the interim, in four subsequent visits to Murrayfield, they look to have made their point pretty well by fielding sub-strength sides and still winning.

Last time around, with Scotland under the charge of their compatriot Vern Cotter, it was a bit different, though, their hosts spurning a chance to take the lead with only a few minutes of the match remaining and ultimately losing just 24-16 and Hansen reckons he cannot afford to take any chances this time around.

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“Last time we rolled the dice a bit, but we had a far more experienced group too to be able to roll the dice. This time we rolled the dice on Tuesday so we don’t have to roll it twice,” he pointed out.

He paid tribute to the work done by Cotter, who was controversially axed at the end of last season and suggested that his successor Gregor Townsend now needs only to apply the finishing touches.

“Vern’s done a really good job with Scotland and Gregor will come in and he’ll add his touch. You’ve got a back and a forward there, so the forward’s given them a little bit of edge and Gregor’ll come in and polish that edge and make it into a lovely gem I should imagine,” said Hansen.

One of those involved that day was Sam Cane, then the under-study to Richie McCaw, their iconic captain, but now a veteran of more than 50 caps who remembers that 2014 encounter only too well and feels he and his team-mates arrive well warned as they seek to defend the All Blacks record of never having lost to Scotland.

“We certainly want to keep that, we don’t want to be the team that is the first to lose, but that is not our driving factor behind going out there. We want to win and have pride in out performance and play well,” said the 24-year-old openside.

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“We only have to think back to the last time we played here. I started the Test, my first in a while and it was a really tough Test match. We really had to grind it out and only just got across the line. It is not that there is a big game between the side, last time we only just got the better of them. We are expecting another tough one.”

A visit to Murrayfield also featured early in the career of their great game-breaker Sonny Bill Williams and while he said he had fond memories of that 2010 visit he, too, has drawn lessons from his experience in challenging his team-mates to assert themselves early on.

“It feels like the crowd is on the field sometimes so I guess we have to start hard and fast early to nullify that. Once the crowd gets involved it can be pretty tough,” he observed.

“We found out pretty quick last week how the crowd can help the French team. I am expecting a similar sort of thing for Scotland.

“We know that their form has been pretty awesome. They have key players who will put a lot of pressure on us. They have some quick outside backs and guys who will get involved in the dirty work.

“We know that we have to win up front and hopefully our backs can then do the job, but there will be more emphasis on the forwards this game.”

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Williams, who was sin-binned and had a penalty try awarded against him for reverting to his rugby league roots when illegally batting the ball over the dead ball line deliberately during the match against France last week, said he would be brushing up on his knowledge of the game’s laws.

However the All Blacks have clearly also been doing a fair bit of homework on their opponents and in particular Scotland’s victory over their trans-Tasman rivals has got their attention.

“It was a big result for them and has not gone unnoticed,” said Williams.

“It has really put us on the edge of our seats in our preparation knowing that they can knock off the big boys. We are ready to play but know we have a massive challenge.

“They have some very dangerous players in their squad. The flavour of footy they are playing just now is great to see and great for world rugby.

“But coming up against that puts us on edge and we know we have to be on our game to compete with these guys. We have to be leave no stone unturned in our preparation. That is how we are going about it.”

In terms of how that will manifest itself, his reference to an emphasis on their forward power seemed particularly relevant in the context of Scotland’s inability to repel Samoa’s forwards when they got in close last weekend.

However when asked whether that had registered with them, coach Hansen shrewdly noted that taking the most obvious route to the line might be rather too predictable and that they may look elsewhere to try to identify alternative areas of weakness.

“I don’t mind where we score them as long as we score them, but we saw that and everyone saw it and I’m sure the Scotland coaches saw it too, so they’ll have done something about that this week. So I wouldn’t be picking that these opportunities may not be there, so we’ll have to find them somewhere else,” he observed.