Watson’s pip Merchiston for place in cup semis

fringes Taylor admitted that he took the lapses personally.

“Yes, any professional coach is disappointed. I take a lot of pride in what I do, representing Scotland,” he said.

“I said to the players today that when people come to the games to watch Scotland play at home they see a lot of themselves in the players and shipping five tries at home isn’t good enough. Unfortunately sometimes my family cops the brunt of the disappointment. I get a bit short really, not as easy to talk to. I’ve got slightly better over the years.

“But we’ve got another game this week. We’ll review the weekend, we need to be better and then focus everything this afternoon on New Zealand going forward.”

As expected Scotland will be without tighthead WP Nel for the rest of the series with a fractured arm and have also lost lock Tim Swinson to a hand injury and Rob Harley, who injured a knee in training last week. Newcastle tighthead Jon Welsh has been drafted in as back-up for Zander Fagerson and Simon Berghan.

“Whenever you lose a number of players who are front-line players it’s a challenge, but it’s an opportunity as well and that’s how we’re looking at it,” said Taylor.

“Everyone has injuries, so we’re not going to use injuries

0 Jon Welsh: Experienced. as an excuse. The next person’s up and you’re representing your country, so the people who are chosen will do the best they’re capable of.

“Jon is very experienced. I know him well. He’s very good and a well-liked member of the squad, so everyone was happy to see him this morning. He’s got a lot of experience and he’s done well in the [English] Premiership.”

Wing Tommy Seymour is expected to be back training this week after hurting a toe on Saturday.

Even if it is against the most challenging opponents in the world game, Taylor is happy to have another match to go straight into and look to make amends from the failings against Samoa.

“The good thing about it is that we’ll be a hell of a lot better this weekend,” he insisted. “But we’ll need to be because we’re under no illusions that unless we defend really well we’ll come second.”

Saturday will be the 31st meeting between the nations and the latest chance for a set of Scotland players to make history and beat the All Blacks for the first time. Since 1905 the record stands at won none, drawn two, lost 28.Taylorpointedtoireland’s breakthrough victory over the world champions in Chicago a year ago.

“I think it’s a motivation. Like anything you haven’t been able to achieve you are striving to achieve it,” said Taylor. “You have to look at Ireland. They were in the same boat not too long ago and they had close results and close results, then they managed to win there, didn’t they in the USA?

“I suppose from our point of view we had a reasonably close result against them last time [a 24-16 home loss in November 2014]. So we’re going to have to play well, we’re going to have to be at our best.”

Taylor senses a heightened intensity in camp.

“Definitely. I could tell already with the guys coming in,” he said. “When the calendar was put out the All Blacks was probably the game everyone focused on. Certainly this morning, we hadn’t even had a training session and you could tell that the guys were very focused already. So again we’re looking for that intensity and focus to be brought into the weekend’s game.”