Ex-Howe of Fife scrum-half George Horne helps Scotland rack up record-breaking 85-0 victory v USA

​The Dundee-born 30-year-old accounted for almost a sixth of that scoreline as head coach Gregor Townsend’s hosts got the better of their American visitors by 13 tries to nil in front of a crowd of 56,589.

That’s their biggest winning margin ever at Murrayfield and also their heftiest to date against the USA, as well as being only seven points shy of their all-time record victory by 92-0 hosting Japan at Perth’s McDiarmid Park in 2004.

Glasgow Warriors No 9 Horne scored a try for his country as well as kicking five conversion, taking his international poinbts tally to 59 in 39 appearances since 2018.

The Scots’ other try-scorers were Darcy Graham and Jamie Dobie with hat-tricks, Duhan van der Merwe at the double, Dylan Richardson, Kyle Rowe, Stafford McDowall and Ollie Smith, with Adam Hastings adding another five conversions.

That match was the first of four this month, with the next, at home to New Zealand following this Saturday, with kick-off at Murrayfield at 3.10pm.

That game will see Townsend’s team attempt to end a wait for a first win against the All Blacks stretching back 32 fixtures thus far and 120 years and he’s hoping to get third time lucky after only losing out by single-figure margins in his two prior tests in charge against them.

The 52-year-old’s first game against New Zealand after taking over from Vern Cotter as Scotland’s head coach in May 2017 was a 22-17 defeat in November of that year and the next was a 31-23 loss five years later, both at Murrayfield.

Though heartened by Saturday’s demolition of the USA in their opening autumn test at Murrayfield on Saturday gone, Townsend is well aware that their next opponents will be a far more daunting proposition, saying: “Obviously we had more ball than we probably would get normally against a top-ten team.

“Of course next week will be a different opposition, one of the top teams in the world, but what we worked on in training, we got that out on the pitch, so it’s a good start to the campaign.

“Everybody’s aware of the step up next week. We obviously know New Zealand are going to test us in different ways than the USA.

“I can’t wait, actually. We don’t get to play them that often and we’ve only played them twice in my time and they were both great occasions, very good games.

“We know we have to be close to our best to win, but that’s what we’ll be working on in training this week.”