After months of speculation, Frank Hadden, the Scotland coach, says it took less than 20 minutes for him to decide to change his entire team from the midweek victory over Romania for the Murrayfield match against the All Blacks tomorrow. In all there are 13 changes in personnel and two positional switches with Chris Paterson moving from wing to fly half and Simon Webster from centre to wing, but he denied he was fielding a second-string or substandard side.

“It would be fair to say this has been a hot topic for some considerable time but rest assured, I have been thinking about it for even longer,” he said. “In the end, 20 minutes after the final whistle against Romania on Tuesday, I presented George Graham and Alan Tait [the two assistant coaches] with a piece of paper with my selection and they both nodded.

“I announced the team immediately to the players so that those involved could start to get mentally prepared but to be honest in my time in the pro game I have had much tougher decisions to make. You don’t make decisions until you have to, so while we had discussed it in detail for many, many months, the final decision was not made until those minutes after the Romania game.”

The selection means that Scotland will start their third game of this World Cup against the No 1 ranked side and overwhelming favourites to win the trophy with two uncapped players and a side that has never played together before. All the same, Hadden denies that this is underselling the game to the public who have paid up to £164 a ticket for the match, saying that it would have worse to have fielded a tired side in this game, being played only five days after the Romania match. Then he would have been faced with playing the same tired side in the make-or-break match against Italy next week.

“I have two friends coming over from Australia and I would not be bringing them over under false pretences. The Scottish team will undoubtedly do the country proud, it will be a very important match and a fantastic occasion,” he added.

In fact, the selection shows how much the Scotland team has changed, since almost half would have considered themselves first choice as recently as the RBS Six Nations Championship in the spring, and of whole starting XV, except for Scott MacLeod, either played in the Six Nations or missed out only through injury.

For Hugo Southwell, the full back, the chance to regain his starting place is too good to miss. “There is a real sense of excitement in the team,” he said. “All the guys see this as a great opportunity, a fantastic chance to go out there and show what we are really capable of. Nobody is carrying any tiredness or niggles into the game so we can go flat out all through.”

The most nervous members of the party will undoubtedly be John Barclay, the flanker, and Alasdair Dickinson, the prop, who will be making their debuts. “What a chance,” Barclay said. “To run out at Murrayfield for your debut against the best team in the world, it is a dream chance for any young player.”

As for Dickinson, who was not even in the Scotland squad ten days ago, while he knows that he is up against Carl Hayman, arguably the best prop in world rugby, he is relishing the opportunity to test himself. “It was a bit of a shock, a bit of a turnaround from watching the game against Portugal at home on television to being called into the squad to playing against the All Blacks,” he said.

“I did not know what to expect, I did want to play but did not expect it. It is a massive test, Hayman is one of the best in the world and it will be a huge challenge for me, a real chance to test my progress. He is a very good scrummager, a big man as well so it will be the toughest test of my career so far.

To get better you have to play against the best.

“I never go out on the pitch thinking I am going to lose, no rugby player does no matter who you are up against. The dream is to go out there and win for Scotland and I will be going out there to give everything I can.”

At stake for the players is the chance to win places in the team for next weekend’s game against Italy, and Hadden says that he has assured all of them that he has not decided on his side for that crunch match and that any who play well enough will come into consideration. Not that any them needed the extra incentive.

How they line up

Scotland: H Southwell (Edinburgh); N Walker (Ospreys), M Di Rollo (Toulouse), A Henderson (Glasgow), S Webster (Edinburgh); C Paterson (Gloucester), C Cusiter (Perpignan); A Dickinson (Gloucester), S Lawson (Sale), C Smith (Edinburgh), S MacLeod (Llanelli Scarlets), S Murray (unattached, captain), K Brown (Glasgow), J Barclay (Glasgow), D Callam (Edinburgh). Replacements: F Thomson (Glasgow), G Kerr (Edinburgh), J Hamilton (Leicester), A Hogg (Edinburgh), R Lawson (Gloucester), D Parks (Glasgow), R Dewey (Ulster).

New Zealand: L MacDonald; D Howlett, C Smith, L McAlister, S Sivivatu; D Carter, B Kelleher; T Woodcock, A Oliver, C Hayman; R Thorne, A Williams; C Masoe, R McCaw (captain), R So’oialo. Replacements: A Hore, N Tialata, C Jack, S Lauaki, B Leonard, N Evans, I Toeava. Referee: M Jonker (South Africa).