Back in 1999 the then chairman of Saatchi and Saatchi Kevin Roberts addressed a meeting of the Scottish Institute of Chartered Accountants, but thankfully he was not there to explain why his company had worked as hard as it did to keep Margaret Thatcher in office.

Instead his presentation revolved around the success of the other organisation whose board he was on, New Zealand’s All Blacks, which explained my invitation.

He started, however, by putting up a photograph of a recent newcomer to the Scotland squad, John Leslie, then super-imposed upon it the letters R.O.I. Apparently I was alone in briefly thinking Roberts was embarrassing himself by mixing Scotland up with Ireland.

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“You are all accountants, so will know what this means,” he said, before thankfully realising there might be a few ignorant souls in the room. “Return on investment,” he continued, at which moment the penny dropped.

Roberts contended that Scots had helped New Zealand build the country it has become and that we were entitled to some payback. Leslie was a cracking example, but it also said a great deal about the rugby resources available to the All Blacks that they had felt able to discard a player who had transformed Scotland’s midfield that year. As brilliant a play-maker as he was, Leslie was, let’s say, a rather complex character and perhaps perceived difficulties in dealing with him had been the reason he was allowed to leave New Zealand. However it may also have simply been down to the quality of the competition for places that has allowed the men from that remote little pair of islands, to perform as they have for a century and more.

The main thrust of Roberts’ presentation was to point out just how successful the All Blacks have been down the years and he suggested that the only sporting entity that bore comparison in terms of sustained success in domestic and international competition, was Bayern Munich, noting that both had winning records in excess of 80 per cent.

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I can remember thinking at the time that it might take longer than in Scotland, but that the numbers game was surely bound to have the same impact on the All Blacks as it had here on the game turning professional. Even though Scotland had won the 1999 Five Nations Championship it already seemed clear that England, in particular, but others too were harnessing bigger populations more effectively.

That seemed borne out by England’s 2003 World Cup triumph and by the time some of us were invited to attend a New Zealand Rugby Union in Auckland during the 2005 Lions tour at which they sought to make their case for hosting the 2011 World Cup, I was ever more convinced that as powerful as they then remained time was running out for them both commercially and competitively. That still feels largely justified in terms of their capacity to stage major tournaments, but in the interim, the All Blacks have completely disproved my misplaced notion that they were bound to be overhauled on the pitch.

In the 18 years since Roberts’ presentation they have played some 228 Tests, winning 196 and drawing four, a success rate of close to 87 per cent… all the more remarkable because they have played fewer matches against those they consider lesser nations, Scotland among them. It is against that background that we must measure the perception of their current team’s ‘vulnerability’ which Johnnie Barclay, Scotland’s captain was so right to reject when I asked for his view on it the other day.

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Admittedly there is some encouragement to be drawn from the fact that teams which lost to Scotland this year, Ireland and Australia, have both beaten the All Blacks in the past 12 months or so, while the Kiwis also both lost to and drawn with a Lions team that was built around the talents of Ireland and Wales teams that Scotland beat earlier this year. However it should also be noted that in the 12 months since that defeat by Ireland they have played another 15 Tests, winning 12 of them and drawing one, a success rate of 83.33 per cent which means that in this post-McCaw/Carter era they have reverted to ‘only’ being as good as the All Blacks of the 20th century.

It will still be quite some achievement if this Scotland team can do what none of its predecessors has managed to.