Ashman's historic hat-trick against All Blacks overshadowed by Scotland's 43-21 collapse

Ewan Ashman etched his name into rugby history at Murrayfield on Saturday, becoming the first Scot — and only the fifth player ever — to score a Test-match hat-trick against New Zealand. But the Edinburgh hooker’s landmark achievement was swallowed by a 43-21 Nations Championship defeat that left Scotland scoreless in the second half.

Scotland trailed by just three points at half-time after a seven-try first half in which Ashman’s treble kept the hosts in contention at 24-21. The second half told a starkly different story, with the All Blacks outscoring their hosts 19-0 to extend an unbeaten run in this fixture to 34 matches — a sequence stretching back to the sides’ first meeting in 1905.

“Obviously, the overriding feeling is gutted that we lost, and that’s the first thing,” Ashman said. “I’d trade all the tries to have won that game. Obviously, if you told me when I was a wee kid that I’d get a hat-trick against the All Blacks, I’d probably take that as well. I’m sure when I get over the emotion of the result, I can look back at that and be proud and be buzzing.”

Ashman was candid about Scotland’s second-half performance. “We hadn’t played that well in the first half, but we were cutting them open, we were scoring tries and we were being a handful. To know that we had more, if we came out in the second half playing as well as we could, we felt it was a game we could win, and we didn’t do that. We can do more, and we’ve got to do more in the next few weeks.”

Scotland face Australia and Japan in the coming weeks, giving head coach Gregor Townsend’s side the opportunity to respond.

New Zealand’s seven tries were shared among Wallace Sititi, Ethan de Groot, Peter Lakai, Beauden Barrett (two), Josh Moorby and Asafo Aumua. The victory carried added emotional weight for the All Blacks, who were honouring Logan Cadwallader, their long-serving head of security who died in Edinburgh last weekend.

“This week’s been a lot bigger than rugby,” said All Blacks captain Codie Taylor. “It’s about acknowledging one of our brothers that had fallen — a husband, father and son who was highly respected in our group. There was definitely a bit more of a motivation there to front up in the jersey.”

As a mark of respect, the All Blacks substitutes joined the starting XV in performing the pre-match Haka. “Everyone wanted to pull the jersey on, but obviously that can’t happen,” Taylor said. “Their thinking was, ‘we want to be part of the Haka because we can actually pay our respects that way’. That just goes to show the connection of the group and how much Loge meant to us.”