Following the All Blacks’ 43-21 victory over Scotland, we pick out our winners and losers from the action at Murrayfield Stadium in the Nations Championship.

Winners

Dave Rennie

The All Blacks came into this match off the back of successive victories over the Wallabies in the Bledisloe Cup but a hat-trick of defeats to the Springboks in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series. That meant that new head coach Dave Rennie boasted a record of six wins from nine Tests, hardly a marvellous record for what the job demands. However, pressure wasn’t mounting, with pundits and the New Zealand public well aware that serious shifts needed to be made for next year’s Rugby World Cup following Scott Robertson’s tenure in charge.

The performance of the All Blacks at Murrayfield on Saturday perhaps showed precisely why New Zealand Rugby made the decision that they did, as it was far from the great Damian McKenzie escape that we witnessed 12 months ago at this venue. Instead, it was a polished, accurate and well-coached team that kept a strong Scottish outfit pointless in the second half and ruthlessly made the most of their opportunities.

Rennie has a 70% Test win record now, and the big caveat is that he has overseen four Tests against the top-ranked team in the world, three of which took place on South African shores. The former Chiefs and Wallabies boss has clearly turned the tide and made the All Blacks into a serious force in international rugby again, and not one that teams fancy creating a bit of history as they did when Robertson was at the helm.

Beauden Barrett

My colleague has described Beauden Barrett’s form as a late-career renaissance, and it’s hard to argue against that as the former two-time World Rugby Player of the Year has been nothing short of brilliant in his last three Test appearances. The eldest Barrett brother lacks the pace that he possessed during the earlier knockings of his career, but that is a fair trade-off for the game smarts and tactical brilliance he has garnered over 148 Test matches.

He equalled Richie McCaw’s Test cap tally against the Scots on Saturday and created his own bit of history, surpassing Doug Howlett’s try-scoring tally. To add the cherry on top, he grabbed another to bring up his half-century of tries in international rugby.

There were those who believed that this year would be the start of Barrett’s stark decline after he fell down the pecking order for New Zealand but the injuries to Ruben Love and Richie Mo’unga have given him the opportunity in the team and he is making the most of it.

It wasn’t just that Barrett scored two tries for New Zealand but also his overall performance; he was strong under the high ball, excellent with ball in hand, and was once again a fantastic playmaking partner for Damian McKenzie. While McCaw was 148 and out, evidence suggests that Barrett will reach the 150 mark and beyond.

Ewan Ashman

When Andrew Brace blasted the whistle for the first time at Murrayfield on Saturday, only four men had scored hat-tricks in a Test match against New Zealand, but by half-time, there were five. Ewan Ashman will have wanted to be a part of the first Scotland team to beat New Zealand but can soothe his wounds with the achievement of becoming just the second forward and fifth player to ever cross the All Blacks’ tryline on three occasions in one Test match, following in the footsteps of Australia’s Greg Cornelsen, South Africa’s Ray Mordt and Marius Joubert, as well as Wales’ Tom Rogers.

Sure, two of those tries came off the back of driving mauls, but he still had to find his jumper before that could occur, and it matters not how the five-pointers were scored, just that they were. The three tries may also take away some of the shine from his overall individual performance because he was excellent. In fact, one of Scotland’s best even when removing the 15 points.

Quinn Tupaea

The glue-man in the All Blacks backline whose work rate, contributions and overall excellence are often outshone by his midfield partner Jordie Barrett. Make no mistake, the youngest Barrett was superb at Murrayfield and was a serious contender for the man of the match award, but frankly, Quinn Tupaea was truly deserving.

Players will often shy away from the spotlight of the individual awards but perhaps this is one that Tupaea should embrace more as he continues to make up for lost time at the highest level after that horrid injury that kept him sidelined for so long.

Jason Ryan, Tana Umaga, Neil Barnes and the All Blacks pack

Mike Blair and Rennie have been lauded for their work time and time again this year but the spotlight hasn’t quite been shone on the remainder of the coaching ticket but they richly deserved it after the performance in the Scottish capital.

Let’s start with Jason Ryan, who has been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, with many questioning his ability to turn the All Blacks scrum into a force in the international game again. He achieved that when he first joined the Test team’s set-up under Ian Foster but the scrum in particular fell off a cliff. Small improvements have been made in recent months, and it all came together against Scotland with the men in black properly bossing the set-piece.

Ryan’s expertise extends to the lineout too where he has been working alongside the straight-talking Neil Barnes and that is a facet of New Zealand’s game that was put under the cosh by the Springboks and has enjoyed an upward trajectory since. The lineout and scrum were the platforms that the All Blacks were able to strike from and were crucial in the victory.

Finally, legendary centre Tana Umaga deserves a doff of the cap after his defence shut out one of the best attacking structures in international rugby for 40 minutes. In fact, only once was his defence breached through open play with two of Scotland’s three tries coming from driving mauls. That is some going in the current game as attack is currently getting the better of defence at the highest level.

Losers

Rory Sutherland

Given the nod over Pierre Schoeman in the starting line-up against the All Blacks, Rory Sutherland was unable to repay the coaching team’s faith in him and was subsequently hooked before half-time.

He battled in the scrums and offered little around the park, with Schoeman making a notable difference in the loose despite having his own struggles in the set-pieces.

The Murrayfield faithful

As mentioned above, the All Blacks needed McKenzie to save the day last year when these two nations met last November, which only gave the Murrayfield faithful more hope that this might just be Scotland’s year. The performances of Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh in the United Rugby Championship only intensified that hope, but as all sports fans know, it’s the hope that kills you, and Saturday that fact rang true again.

The 2025 meeting was close; the 2026 one was too, but only for 40 minutes, and much like the hope killing you, the Scots again were the nearly men, providing the promise that they are different and could get the result that the fans so desperately want but like 2025, this year, Scotland have failed to win the Six Nations and failed to beat the All Blacks.

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Gregor Townsend

And that again raises the question that rears its head time and time again… Has Gregor Townsend taken this team as far as he possibly can? It the one raised earlier this year before the Six Nations and after the defeat to Italy, but silenced with wins over England and France.

Therein lies the issue. Scotland are more than capable of memorable victories over top teams but are not producing them often enough for what this golden generation deserves. Third place in the World Rugby rankings was a possibility for Scotland in victory, which would have been their highest-ever ranking, but again, the team wasn’t able to rise to the occasion and deliver.

There were calls not to extend Townsend’s contract through to the World Cup with Franco Smith taking over after this year’s Six Nations and perhaps the Scottish Rugby Union will live to regret that they didn’t make the decision then, or maybe not. Only time will tell.

Richie Mo’unga

Injury has kept Richie Mo’unga out of the All Blacks team following Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series and Rennie has stated that he is likely to return in time for the clash against England with Wales probably a week too soon. However, the axis of McKenzie and Barrett are looking increasingly more difficult to break up with every passing Test match.

The duo were outstanding at Eden Park, even better in Sydney and arguably produced their best in the Scottish capital. That will put Rennie and his staff in a difficult position when it comes to nailing down their team for the all-important final match of the Nations Championship regular season match at Twickenham, especially if the Springboks are unbeaten in the competition by that stage too.