Scotland v New Zealand: Ben Toolis says Scots can find All Blacks' weaknesses

Ben Toolis made his first home start for Scotland in last Saturday's win over Samoa

Ben Toolis says Scotland are confident they can find a chink in New Zealand's armour when the world champions visit Murrayfield on Saturday.

Scotland have never beaten the All Blacks, who have lost only three of 26 Tests since winning the 2015 World Cup.

The Scots began their trio of autumn Tests with a 44-38 win over Samoa, while New Zealand beat France 38-18.

"There's always something you're going to find that you can exploit," lock Toolis said.

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"They've lost to a few teams in the last few years - Australia beat them, South Africa came close, and Ireland beat them last year for the first time - so there's always going to be areas of the game you can find and do damage.

"We'll have a great opportunity to score points and put them under pressure, and that's what our goal is going to be this week."

Australian-born Toolis, 25, won his fifth cap in Saturday's victory, making his first Test start at the national rugby stadium.

Scotland scored six tries in beating Samoa, but will be alarmed at the number of points they shipped

In an end-to-end encounter, Scotland surrendered a 22-point lead as the Samoans scored four second-half tries to finish within six points of the hosts.

Gregor Townsend's men missed 17 tackles, and the 6ft 7in second-row says the squad will be working on defence this week.

"We tried to focus on a way we wanted to play and we probably steered away from what we're good at [defence]," Toolis said.

"Now we've got to go back to what we're good at. And that's why we're going to focus on that and fix that this week."

Fighting fire with fire

Toolis admits thoughts of becoming the first Scotland side to topple the All Blacks are "at the back of your mind" as the Test approaches.

The teams last met in 2014, with New Zealand earning a 24-16 victory at Murrayfield

But the Edinburgh player says with boss Townsend demanding rapid-fire attack from his players, taking on the world's best will be a good barometer of their prowess with ball in hand.

"We can't get ahead of ourselves now, we just need to focus on what we want to do and how we want to play and hopefully it'll lead to [winning]," he said. "But if it happens it'll be very special.

"They play high-tempo, most of their players play Super Rugby and they're used to that style. It'll be exciting for us to see how we compare to that.

"Gregor's a great coach and the way he wants to attack, we scored all those points at the weekend, so we'll take the positives that we can put tries on.

"Having one game under our belt, we're looking to improve on that, getting into the rhythm. It'll be a good test for us and I'm sure we'll do really well."

Townsend will name his team to face New Zealand on Thursday afternoon.