Rarely can a team that has conceded 10 tries and more than half a century of points have taken more credit from a rugby match but it was no platitude to talk of Scottish pride in performance as they turned what briefly looked like being a record-breaking thrashing into a respectable result against the world champions at Hull’s KC Lightstream Stadium last night.

A highly motivated Australian team had looked set to run riot in the early stages of the match, but by the end the scoreline was placed in perspective by the knowledge that the Wigan Warriors club, where Scotland’s head coach Steve McCormack earns his corn week-in, week-out, had suffered a much bigger hammering, 62-0, at the hands of Wakefield earlier this season on their way to becoming Super League champions.

This could have been much worse and McCormack knew it as he observed afterwards that Australia, who had given Four Nations defending champions New Zealand a heavy beating in a warm-up match for this tournament “can do that to any team in the world.”

The 12,500 seater stadium was not quite half full to witness the encounter, but right down to the adverts for ‘Pukka Pies’ the setting was somewhat reminiscent of scenes at rugby union’s first World Cup in Australia in New Zealand close to 30 years ago. In evolutionary terms that is probably the level international rugby league has reached.

The Scots had arrived emotionally charged on their bus trip to the home ground of Kelso’s ex-Hull Kingston Rover George Fairbairn, arguably Scotland’s greatest ever rugby league player, by video messages from their loved ones telling them just how proud they are to see them representing Scotland.

By definition, however, just as with so many players who have represented Scotland’s other national rugby team over the past 20 years or so, they are chosen from those not considered good enough to be selected for the countries in which they were born. This may be the strongest Scotland squad ever assembled, but for all that rugby league is not the world’s richest sport, in no other is the gap between rich and poor more acute which meant the Australian management’s decision to leave out two of their biggest names, Greg Inglis and three time NRL golden boot winner Jonathan Thurston, was more dangerous than welcome for the Scots, their places inevitably taken by players eager to catch the eye of the most famous figure of all in their ranks, head coach Mal Meninga.

Furthermore, while the Kangaroos were playing their first match in Britain since winning the World Cup final at Old Trafford in 2013, they are still seeking to regain number one status from New Zealand.

It took four and a half minutes for them to demonstrate their ruthlessness with a Blake Ferguson try and five minutes later Cameron Smith, the Kangaroos captain, demonstrated his skills with a clever left-footed kick against the grain that allowed Cooper Cronk an easy score and this time James Maloney converted to get them up to point-per-minute pace for the first time. Five minutes later and with Maloney having registered a try of his own, while Cronk had claimed his second, the inevitable talk of all-time records began to circulate around the press box.

The Kangaroos’ biggest ever win had been 108-0 against a New Zealand Residents XIII in a World Cup warm-up match in Millennium year apparently, while the records indicated that the biggest win recorded in a full international had seen France beat Serbia & Montenegro 120-0 13 years ago.

Yet by the interval the world champions had registered just two more, both from winger Josh Mansour and the last score of the half was produced by the Scots with an ‘anything you can do’ moment from Brough, a near identical chip to that executed earlier by his rival captain confusing the defence sufficiently for his Huddersfield Giants half-back partner Brierley to race through and touch down, Brough converting to make it 30—6 at the interval.

While a lovely off-load from Matty Russell allowed Brierley to put Scotland on the front foot once more with a kick deep into opposition territory as the hooter sounded the Scotland management still had reason to be concerned by the amount of energy their men had expended in what had been, until the last couple of minutes of the half, a near relentless rearguard effort.

The Kangaroos duly scored their seventh try within three minutes of the re-start, but their opponents had visibly gained confidence from the way they ended the first half and were amazingly to share the spoils in the third quarter, a Brough interception and 50 metre sprint setting up the field position and Ben Kavanagh powering over soon afterwards, close enough to the posts to make it easy for his captain to add the bonus points and make it 36-12 on the hour mark.

Inevitably there was a closing onslaught, Tyson Frizzell, Michael Morgan and Jake Trbojevic all crossing the Scottish line, but even as they passed the 50 mark with the game’s last play there was nothing for the Scots to feel the least bit embarrassed about.

Australia: M Moylan, J Mansour, J O’Neill, J Dugan, B Ferguson, J Maloney, C Cronk, A Woods, C Smith capt, D Klemmer, S Thaiday, T Frizzell, J Trbojevic. Interchanges – J Friend, S Boyd, M Morgan

Scotland: L Coote, L Tierney, E Aitken, K Linnett, M Russell, D Brough capt, R Brierley, A Walker, L Hood, L Douglas, D Addy, D Ferguson, B Kavanagh. Interchanges – B Hellewell, S Powe-Hobbs, S Brooks, B McConnachie

Referee: B Thaler