Contrasting tries showed quality in both defence and attack against Wallabies

It was Twickenham, either 2001 or 2003. I forget which but England ran up 40 points on both occasions, scoring altogether a dozen tries to Scotland’s none. In one of the matches we had almost all the ball for the first ten minutes or quarter of an hour. A few days later Chris Paterson said he thought England were happy with that. “They like to let you have possession early just to prove you can’t do anything with it.” Scotland didn’t, I assume, take the field in Sydney with that attitude. Yet they might have done so. Overall, according to the official statistics, Australia had 59 per cent of possession and 70 per cent of territory, but still lost. More to the point the first two Scottish tries came when Australia had secured possession.

Such tries are often described as “opportunist”, fairly enough. But it’s one thing to have an opportunity, another to seize it. Moreover, both Duncan Taylor’s interception and Finn Russell’s charge-down try were made possible by the pressure being exerted on the Australian defence. The Wallabies were harassed into making mistakes.

The third Scottish try was very different: a thing of beauty which will be replayed time and again in the months and years to come.

I suppose it wasn’t quite as significant as Jim Calder’s against France in 1984 or Tony Stanger’s against England in 1990, both of which secured us the Grand Slam, but it’s up there with Andy Irvine’s first try against France in 1980, the glorious first try triggered by young Roger Baird’s audacious run out of our own 22 in Cardiff in 1982, the Gavin Hastings’ try against France in 1995 when the “Toony flip” saw the French defence open like the parting of the Red Sea before the Children of Israel, or indeed tries scored in Paris in 1999 when they came so fast and frequently that it was hard to retain a clear memory of any of them. In short, it was pretty good.

So indeed was the defence. Alex Dunbar is the least spectacular member of this now glittering Scottish back division, but it was his turnover of Michael Hopper when the clock was already in the red that saved the day.

He does this time and again. At making the tackle, getting back on his feet to win the ball or force the tackled player to concede a penalty for holding on, Dunbar is now in the Brian O’driscoll class.

There are really only two adverse criticisms which might be offered of the Scottish performance. First, we botched an attempt to run down the clock with the now