Keven Mealamu, the New Zealand hooker, said Scotland's performance against Argentina on Saturday has made them "sit up in their chairs a bit" ahead of the world champions' match at Murrayfield on Saturday.
The New Zealand squad last night watched a rerun of Scotland's 41-31 win over Argentina in their Edinburgh hotel and the 122-capped Mealamu admits he is excited by the prospect of facing the new-look home side.
"Scotland have definitely improved over the last year and we will prepare well for the match, as we always do," said the 35-year-old. "I wasn't surprised by the [Scotland-Argentina] result, but it sort of made us all sit up in our chairs a bit and certainly made sure that we will have a really good look at them this week.
"Against any top-tier nations anything is possible and we have definitely taken notice of the score from the weekend. We will not be leaving any stone unturned."
If Mealamu plays at the weekend he will overtake the legendary Sir Colin Meads' record for the number of first class (club and country) games played by a New Zealander.
The experienced hooker has not worked with compatriot Vern Cotter, Scotland's head coach, but believes he is having a positive impact.
"Certainly from the weekend's performance he seems to have got Scotland doing good things. There is a willingness from the coach to get his players to open up the game a bit more and that is something that perhaps we are not used to seeing from them. Time will tell how he will do, but from what we are seeing so far it looks really positive. I think Scotland's ability to use the ball has improved and it just looks like they are playing a bit more of an expansive game.
"I think it is something we are seeing amongst a lot of the international teams now, a willingness to play rugby when the chances arise while most teams are contesting a lot of their attacking kicks now, not just looking to go long and into touch."
New Zealand have never lost an international to Scotland, winning 27 and drawing two while, since 2001, they have won six times at Murrayfield. The last time they visited in 2012 they won 51-22, but second-row Jeremy Thrush expects the game to be tighter this coming weekend.
"I wasn't here two years ago, but I expect Saturday to be a tough match and tight as every Test match is," said Thrush.
"I think it will be a good match and we are looking forward to getting a good week of training under our belts in preparation."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article