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Gregor Townsend regularly cites the games against France and South Africa in the past 12 months as two of the best Scotland displays of his eight-year reign but Scott Cummings knows the national team need to back up that level of performance with a victory. Saturday’s sold-out game against New Zealand at Murrayfield would be a good place to start as the second-row forward looks to achieve something no Scotland side have done before. This will be the 33rd meeting with the All Blacks and it is a fixture the southern hemisphere giants have dominated, beating Scotland on 30 occasions and drawing the other two. Cummings played against the Springboks this time last year and although the Scots matched them for long periods at Murrayfield they ultimately went down 32-15. It was a similar story in Paris in the Six Nations decider in March before France pulled away to win 35-16. “We can say we’re progressing, but at the end of the day, until we get the results…” Cummings doesn’t finish the sentence but you know what he means. He was part of the side that beat England away in 2021 to claim Scotland’s first win at Twickenham for 38 years. Later in that campaign, the Scots also notched their first victory in Paris for 22 years. It will require that sort of landmark performance to get the All Blacks monkey off their backs. “We’ve done that with England, France,” said Cummings. “We have beaten some of the big Six Nations teams but, definitely, some of those southern hemisphere powerhouses we haven’t beaten consistently. With someone like New Zealand, we need at some point to step up and come over that hurdle and beat one of those big teams, and definitely from there we can push on. “It’s something that we’re 100 per cent focusing on. It’s a massive game for us, like we said. We’ll obviously be gutted with anything but a win.” Cummings, 28, is relishing being back in the Scotland set-up after a broken arm forced him to miss this year’s Six Nations. He came back strongly at the end of the season with Glasgow Warriors to earn a call-up form the British and Irish Lions. He didn’t feature in the Test matches in Australia but acquitted himself well on tour, playing in the send-off game against Argentina as well as the wins over Western Force, New South Wales Waratahs, the Invitational AU & NZ side and the First Nations & Pasifika XV. He said mixing with some of the best players from Ireland, England and Wales was an education. “It’s probably the first time I’ve been in a really different [rugby] environment,” he said. “Being in the Scottish system for my whole life, I’ve had similar coaches all the way through. Obviously there’s some chop and change, but we’ve always kind of played one way. “And to go into a completely different system and learn how that works, how other players view the game, and learn things from them, from the coaches and the players . . . Yeah, I learned loads. It was such a great experience and I’ve definitely taken away a lot from it.”
