Rugby: Message from marae for the Scottish

By WYNNE GRAY

At opposite ends of the North Island, the All Black and Scotland rugby teams attended powhiri yesterday as they embarked on schedules designed to have them at a peak for their first test meeting, at Carisbrook this month.

After the Scots' recent Six Nations staggers, when they achieved just one win, bookmakers, critics and observers have given them no chance of achieving a historic test victory against the All Blacks.

While the Scots will bring the passion and grit which underlined their World Cup quarter-final challenge against the All Blacks, if they win a test on this tour it will be a greater shock than the All Blacks' World Cup semifinal loss.

That thinking was perhaps that of a Maori elder yesterday as he addressed the Scots at Waitangi after their arrival for their two-test, seven-game tour.

After his speech in Maori, the elder switched to English to tell his guests that he presumed none of them understood his native language as he had just given them the All Blacks' game-plan for the opening test.

Amid good-natured laughter, the Scots did not miss a beat as they reminded their hosts that they had a number of New Zealand-born players in their group.

There was a similar convivial mood about the All Blacks' visit to a Wellington marae yesterday before they moved to the Rugby Institute in Palmerston North.

The All Blacks squad held a couple of training sessions in Wellington, with the only medical issue a sore heel which captain Todd Blackadder has carried for a few weeks.

Meanwhile, the Scots' first opponents, the Vikings, have a significant group of Northland players and others with connections to the area for the match on Friday in Whangarei.

Glenn Taylor will lead the team, and former fullback Warren Johnston, who passed 2000 points in first-class rugby when playing for his adopted union, Nelson Bays, at the weekend, will turn out, as will other favourite "expatriates" such as Con Barrell, Mark Robinson, Todd Miller and Nick White.

When Scottish coach Ian McGeechan brought the Lions to New Zealand in 1993, he took the squad north for preparation before they nearly claimed a series win against the All Blacks. He hopes a similar plan will bring better results this year.

He said: "We just wanted somewhere where we could go to train in relative solitude because we know to a man that we have to play to our best on this tour to make it all succeed."