Andrew Henderson has paid tribute to the former team-mate who matched his national cap record last weekend and is in no doubt that Danny Brough can help set new standards for Scottish rugby league as he surpasses it.

Now coach of the London Broncos who play in the second tier Championship, just missing out on being promoted back into Super League this season, Henderson earned his 23 caps over a 10 year period after first being selected in 2003 and making his appearance at the 2013 World Cup, sharing the play-making duties for much of that time with Brough who had made his debut the following year.

He is consequently delighted that Brough has been the first to catch up with his cap tally and that he will almost certainly be the man to set a new mark.

“Records are there to be broken and all good things come to an end and I couldn’t be prouder of Danny Brough,” said Henderson.

“He’s been there a long time, the same as I was and he’s continued to fly the flag and be the talismanic figure for Scotland. I’m proud that he’s the one to match it and I’m sure he’ll take it next year at the World Cup as he leads the Bravehearts over there.

“Fingers crossed he stays fit for that because he’s shown how big a cog he is in this Scotland side.”

Henderson has been in the television commentary booth throughout the tournament and was hugely impressed with what he saw from Scotland, believing he saw increasing evidence that they are now developing a squad that is capable of coping physically with the sport’s super-powers, something that was not the case during his career.

“Danny, along with Lachlan Coote, really orchestrated a lot of the good work, but it was built on a really good platform laid by the Scottish forwards,” he reckoned.

“There’s been a lot of hype around the Scottish outside backs in this tournament and the quality of halves. The forwards haven’t been spoken about as much and they’ve probably been seen as the weak spot, but I think Luke Douglas, Adam Walker and Ben Kavanagh really laid a strong platform, Billy McConnachie came off the bench and added some spice, an extra injection in the middle. Brett Phillips did well when he came on, so did Frankie Mariano and Ben Hellewell did 80 minutes again in the back-row and Dale Ferguson again was strong.

“The Scottish pack really fronted up against a really strong New Zealand side in particular which then allowed Brough and Coote to generate a bit of interplay and they scored some nice tries, played some good football in tough conditions and thoroughly deserved something out of the game. It would have been a real travesty if they’d lost that game.”

With the international game at what remains very much an embryonic stage, for all that considerable ambition has been shown in the decision to aim to take the World Cup to North America in 2025, Henderson was well aware of having been part of a work in progress during his career. However the evidence of this performance in the Four Nations tournament, not least when they made history by drawing with official world number one side New Zealand, is that they have moved up another level in the short time since that ended.

“The Scottish side took massive strides between 2008 and 2013,” he said.

“It showed we could compete with and beat the emerging nations that were of similar standard to us and to compete in a quarter-final of the World Cup was magnificent. But then they have come into this competition – and let’s not forget they earned that right by winning the European Cup in 2014 – where they’ve shown they can compete with the big three.

“Yes, they were shell-shocked for the first 25 against Australia, but they competed well in the second half, then put in a really strong performance against England in patches and now they’ve matched New Zealand, held their own and were probably unlucky not to win the game if we’re being honest.”