It spoke well of John Barclay on Saturday evening that the Scotland captain was not about to allow the man who had revived his international career to be air-brushed out of history.

The way the flanker was marginalised for a lengthy period after he left the Scottish game to join the Scarlets was a rather bizarre episode, not least because he was so obviously a vital component in the revival of rugby in Llanelli.

Once re-established in the squad by Vern Cotter his standing was reinforced when, after long-standing skipper Greig Laidlaw was ruled out by injury last year, he was appointed to the post and the Scotland team has continued to improve under his leadership.

When, then, he was asked on the pitch after Saturday’s match about Gregor Townsend’s impact since taking over as head coach, he showed no disrespect to the man who was head coach at Glasgow Warriors when he headed to Wales, but offered perspective in answering.

“You can see ... he has taken over from what Vern did, Vern did a lot of good work and took Scotland a long distance,” said the Scotland captain.

“Gregor has come and has done a very similar thing. He has brought in a lot of his own ideas .You can see the way we are trying to play, the intent, the speed we are trying to play with it is fun to be part of.”

A similar sort of message had been delivered a couple of days before the game, albeit perhaps a tad more mischievously, by Steve Hansen, the All Blacks coach when he took the chance to pay tribute to his countryman Cotter, whom many felt was very harshly treated when sacked as Scotland coach.

“Vern’s done a really good job with Scotland and Gregor will come in and he’ll add his touch,” Hansen observed.

“You’ve got a back and a forward there, so the forward’s given them a little bit of edge and Gregor’ll come in and polish that edge and make it into a lovely gem I should imagine.”

As was the case in his playing days there has always been a sense that what Townsend seeks to bring to the game is not so much the nuts and bolts, but the added sparkle which is fine if someone else is looking after those fundamentals.

His greatest campaigns on the field were in 1997, with the British & Irish Lions and in 1999, with Scotland. In the first of those, on the fabled tour of South Africa, it was Matt Dawson who called most of the shots behind the Martin Johnson-powered pack, while Townsend had Jeremy Guscott, another of England’s greatest ever players, outside him, not to mention Alan Tait in that back line.

Tait, battle-hardened by a rugby league career that had also seen him represent Great Britain, was also to feature when the last Five Nations Championship was won two years later, playing in the Scotland midfield alongside John Leslie who had brought with him from New Zealand what seemed like an almost telepathic understanding of what Townsend might try to do, something that had often seemed to bamboozle homegrown centres. All of which, of course, only happened when their captain, Scotland’s greatest ever player Gary Armstrong, decided to let the backs indulge themselves.

It is, then, entirely in character that Townsend’s emphasis as a coach has been on attacking play, an area in which he was invited to specialise in his first senior coaching post under first Frank Hadden and then Andy Robinson, with largely disappointing results.

However he then took over a Glasgow Warriors team that had gone through a toughening up process and introduced a style of play that they were ready to embrace, picking up the first meaningful trophy claimed by one of Scottish professional teams in persuading the Murrayfield hierarchy that he was ready for the top job.

It may well be that, as tough as it was on Cotter, the timing of the decision has been right since the evidence of last weekend’s clash with the best team in the world as the All Blacks at last decided to field their strongest available team at Murrayfield, was that with Matt Taylor still in place, ensuring that the defensive basics are addressed, a team boasting more pace and flair than any Scottish side of recent memory, genuinely believes it can deliver on their coach’s ambitions.