As Scotland prime themselves for the most important autumn Test campaign in their history, they can draw huge confidence from their recent record against the Southern Hemisphere sides when it is compared with those of their European rivals.

These friendly matches, for so long a tiresome interruption in the competitive season, have taken on new importance with the link of the world ranking system to seedings for the next World Cup which, for the 2015 tournament, will be decided once the last autumn Tests are played on December 1.

The ranking system itself may be in dire need of an overhaul, horribly unsophisticated as it is when compared with the sort of statistical excellence that makes the golf and tennis world rankings much more relevant and has brought a new level of fairness to cricket through Duckworth/Lewis.

Even so, they at least offer a mechanism less blunt than basing World Cup pools on the performances of four years previously, for which we should be thankful. All the more so for Scotland, since it means there is an opportunity to undo the damage of that first failure to reach the knockout stages of a World Cup.

Admittedly, many of us would like to see the date of that seedings update pushed back even further, at least one year and even to within a year of the tournament taking place. But at least the current system takes some account of the reshaping of teams in the wake of the inevitable flurry of retirements that follow World Cups.

In any case, the last World Cup showed the seeding system, based on an interim update, to be bang on since the top eight in 2011 all won through to the quarter-finals. Thereafter, the only significant over-performance by any of the teams in tournament play was that France, despite having entered the draw in December 2008 with what most would consider an artificially low seeding of seventh, reached the final which they very nearly won.

If, then, it is a shorter window of opportunity than it might have been since that 2011 World Cup final a year ago, there has at least been a chance to demonstrate progress in the interim. While that opportunity was not taken by Scotland in the RBS 6 Nations when they were whitewashed, there is considerable reason not only to hope but to expect that to change.

The way, last summer, Scotland improved their ranking points by taking advantage of what was a highly favourable schedule when compared with those of their European rivals, was just the latest demonstration of their capacity to raise their game out of tournament play.

Andy Robinson's record as head coach is abject in tournament play, far and away the worst of any Scotland coach who has been in charge of the team for any more than two seasons. He has, though, done significantly better in what were previously termed Test "friendlies", but should now be seen as world rankings matches. When taken in the round with the performances of their closest rivals in relevant contests, Scotland should, then, see themselves as having a huge opportunity.

It would, of course, be fairly ridiculous to have any expectation of anything other than the continuance of the All Blacks' 107-year unbeaten record against the Scots on Sunday.

Yet it was the week after New Zealand handed out their last humbling of what had, in hindsight, been a ridiculously optimistic Scotland side two years ago, that the Springboks arrived at Murrayfield to be beaten for the second time in a decade.

What, then, can we draw from these statistics as Scotland strive to overhaul either Ireland or Argentina to get into the top eight in the rankings?

In the first instance, they provide evidence that Scotland, for whatever reason, perform much better in these non-tournament conditions than when league points are up for grabs. This has been the case for some time.

These "friendly" results, which have produced upset wins over Australia, home and away, and South Africa in the past three years, contrast astonishingly with World Cup performances where Scotland's matches have been the most boringly predictable, generating not a single upset in seven tournaments.

Following on from that, it would seem reasonable to conclude, on the basis of the statistics, that Scotland have a better chance of grabbing the opportunity provided by the South Africa match in particular, to improve their status by beating one of the big three.

Ireland's record is slightly better than the others, but they have only one tilt and it comes against South Africa in their opening match which should favour the tourists since they have had much more recent match practice in the new four-nation Rugby Championship.

Thereafter, the Irish have conveniently avoided the risk inherent in a match in which they could only have lost ground by withdrawing Test status from their meeting with Fiji, ahead of the match that gives Scotland their chance while Ireland meet Argentina on November 24. If there are no prior upsets and Ireland win that one then, as long as Scotland beat Tonga in Aberdeen, they will be above Argentina when the draw is made.

Of course, if the Springboks are beaten at Murrayfield then only an improbable sequence – Argentina beat Wales and France lose to Ireland, or Ireland beat South Africa then lose to Argentina – would prevent Scotland from claiming top-eight status.

Hard to follow as that all may be, what is clear is that the matches to be played around Europe in the next month are far from the meaningless autumn encounters that they used to be, and especially so for Scotland.