FOR his name alone, the former Argentina wing Uriel O'Farrell ought to be one of the most celebrated figures in rugby history, but he actually gave far more to the sport than that improbable moniker.

In his brief, but prolific, Test career, O'Farrell established a remarkable playing record. Its span was precisely eight days, but in that short time he managed to play three games and score 14 tries. To add perspective to the achievement, it has taken Sean Lamont 11 years and 93 caps to score two fewer.

O'Farrell's week-and-a-bit of glory began in Buenos Aires on Sunday, 9 September 1951, when he contributed seven tries to Argentina's 62-0 win over Uruguay. The following Thursday, he touched down six times as the Pumas cruised past Brazil, 72-0. Three days later, he added one more in a rather tighter 13-3 victory over Chile.

And that was it. I have no idea why, but O'Farrell never played for his country again. He might have been injured. He might have been tired. He might have lost interest when he realised that the other side were allowed to score as well. Or he might have looked at his own try-scoring pattern, clocked the fact that he was scoring fewer tries with every passing game, and decided to get out at the top.

Or he could have succumbed to the gambler's fallacy. This philosophical concept, in short, is the belief that the probability of a particular event occurring in a sequence is dependent on preceding events. For example, the gambler convinces himself - and I think we can be gender specific here as women aren't nearly so daft - that team X is likelier to lose its next game precisely because it has won its last three. It might also be known as the it's-got-to-happen-sometime delusion.

There is a wonderful scene at the start of Tom Stoppard's 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead' where the title characters are playing a coin-tossing game. Time and again Guildenstern calls tails, and time and against Rosencrantz pockets the money. After 77 heads in a row, the exasperated Guildenstern says: "A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else at least in the law of probability."

Dan Drysdale probably felt the same way when he toured South Africa with the British and Irish Lions in 1924. Drysdale was a fine full-back, as he would prove the following year when he helped Scotland to a first-ever Five Nations Grand Slam, but in Lions lore he is remembered as the man who couldn't hit a cow's backside with a banjo.

In fairness, Drysdale never considered himself to be much of a goal-kicker, and he proved that point emphatically on tour. As the venture unfolded, and with a Test series looming, the Lions were engulfed by a full-blown injury crisis and ran out of recognised kickers. So the job was given to Drysdale.

Bad choice. Over the course of four Tests, he tried pots at goal numerous times, but drew a complete blank every time. He missed a simple conversion in the first clash with the Springboks, but his notoriety rests mainly on his howler late in the third Test, when he scuffed a penalty wide from straight in front of the posts with the scoreline at 3-3. Even the Lions' official history could not ignore his shortcomings. 'Drysdale was a duffer when it came to kicking for goal', it says.

It was the gambler's fallacy at work. Every time Drysdale missed, the conviction grew among the Lions that he would get it right eventually. The more he wafted towards the corner flags, the more they thought he would thread the next one between the posts. But this was no coin-tossing game. The odds were skewed against Drysdale by the fact he was a rubbish kicker.

Which brings us to Twickenham. As you might expect, the odds on a Scotland win there make grim reading. Last time I looked, the Scots were priced at 8/1 against, with England at 1/10 on.

But I suspect a few Scots will still be tempted to back their boys in blue. And not because of what has happened over the past few weeks, but rather because of what has happened over the past 32 years. Or, to be more precise about it, what has not happened.

Yes, we are talking of the longest losing streak in Championship history as we are obliged, yet again, to face up to the fact that Scotland have not won at Twickenham since 1983. Back then, Margaret Thatcher was in power, Kajagoogoo were at the top of the charts and scientists at a secret facility in the Mendip Hills had not yet made the tragic mistake of dropping some mutant genetic material into a petri dish of warm slime to produce Simon Cowell.

Dinosaurs might not have been stalking the earth, but Iain Milne and John Beattie were doing a decent impression as they humbled England in their own backyard. The celebrations afterwards were at the almighty end of the spectrum. But the hangover has been, too.

Will we finally shake it off this year? You could find an omen in the fact that in 1983 Scotland had lost their first three championship matches before they plucked that improbable win at Twickenham, but you would have to ignore the fact they have been in this position before and failed to do so. And while England have not looked all that great this year, they have looked better than our lot.

Still hope springs eternal. And if Scotland do pull off a victory, the players would be well advised to retire on the spot. Quit when you're winning is the only piece of gambling advice worth following. That's what Uriel would have done.