The stats at half-time showed the Maoris had dominated ball possession, territory on the field, metres made – yet it was the Scots who led 24-12.
They were, for the first 40 minutes, clinical. Reminiscent of the attacking accuracy of the Six Nations, back-line moves were carried out with precision and Horne’s second try will go down as one of Scotland’s best.
They knew they couldn’t truck it up the middle, instead they waited to pick holes in behind the home defence and used their kicking game expertly. That’s where Smith, Adam Hastings and Horne all shone.
They had other opportunities to score, though. More points should have been taken when the Maoris were down to 13 men at the start of the second half, while the red-zone entry in the final 10 minutes lacked structure.
Fiji are up next and might not let the Scots off so easy, and those World Rugby ranking points are so crucially important if they want to progress out of the World Cup pool stage.
