All Blacks assistant coach Mike Blair has revealed how important the experienced playmaking duo Beauden Barrett and Damian McKenzie have been to the All Blacks’ cause on attack in recent Tests.

New Zealand are set to get the northern hemisphere leg of their Nations Championship campaign underway against Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday.

Impressive start to Nations Championship campaign

This, after the All Blacks made an impressive start to the newly formed tournament by winning all three of their southern hemisphere Tests against France, Italy and Ireland in July.

Barrett and McKenzie have been vying for the All Blacks’ fly-half jersey in recent years, but Ruben Love was wearing the number 10 jersey in all three of their previous Nations Championship clashes.

Meanwhile, McKenzie started at full-back in all of those Tests while there was no place in the matchday squad for Barrett.

It was a similar story during Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series against the Springboks, with McKenzie wearing the number 15 jersey in all four of those Tests – with Love starting the first three encounters at fly-half and Richie Mo’unga slotting into that role in the other one – while Barrett only made an appearance off the replacements bench in the fourth clash in Baltimore.

However, injuries to Love and Mo’unga meant McKenzie was shifted to fly-half for last month’s two Bledisloe Cup Tests against the Wallabies while Barrett came into the starting line-up at full-back.

That playmaking combination has worked out superbly for New Zealand as they won both those Tests comfortably and Blair is delighted with McKenzie and Barrett’s contributions to that success.

“Our selections probably since July have shown the 10 and 15 as players who are able to play-make. I think Damian and Beauden have done that really well,” said the All Blacks’ attack coach.

“They’ve played a lot of Test matches together. They’ve been in a lot of squads together.

“Their ability to switch in and out of first receiver and play-make from different areas is really key to our attacks.”

New Zealand are heading into Saturday’s clash against Scotland in a confident mood as they are unbeaten in 33 previous Tests against their hosts, with 31 of those ending in victory for the All Blacks with two draws – in 1964 and 1983 – being the best results in this fixture for the Scots.

However, Blair, who represented Scotland in 85 Tests as a scrum-half between 2002 and 2012, is wary of his former team, who have proved a tough challenge for the All Blacks in recent years, as the last four Tests between these countries have been decided by a margin of eight points or fewer.

“We talked this morning about the tightness of the games; the last four games have all been within eight points,” he said.

‘They’re very cohesive’

“It’s another good opportunity to show the growth in our game. We’ve been together four and a half months. This team under Gregor [Townsend] has been together eight years and they’re very cohesive.”

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Blair revealed that protecting their unbeaten status against the Scots is “really important”, along with some other records, and that will prove a motivating factor ahead of Saturday’s Test.

“It’s really important. We’ve got a couple of longstanding records. The Eden Park record, every time we play there, there’s an extra edge to it because you don’t want to be the team that loses that record.

“So it’s definitely a huge motivation and as I said before, we’re really proud of that record and we know the last four matches it’s been close, so it’s going to be a tough contest for sure.”