IT is a remarkable claim, but rugby league officials believe that their sport - hardly played this side of the border - is the only one to have featured Scots in a World Cup final.

Certainly, if it is accepted that the only major options are football, rugby union and cricket, the claims of said officials are indisputable, and two of them not only played in finals but were central to winning the very first.

That was in 1954, some 33 years before the first rugby union World Cup, when rugby league staged its first tournament and the winners were a Great Britain side led by a Scot, Dave Valentine. Among his teammates was Dave Rose, a fellow Borderer who scored tries in both the key round-robin match and the final itself.

While Valentine died almost four decades ago, Rose presented the Scotland team with their match jerseys ahead of their meeting with Italy earlier this month and was proudly showing off his winner's medal before their quarter-final against New Zealand. It is, though, the third of them who is best known to the wider Scottish sporting community, largely because he played during the golden age of BBC-televised rugby league, when it was the centrepiece of Grandstand in the seventies.

George Fairbairn - another Borderer, of course - arrived as a teenage prodigy at Kelso in the early 1970s, just after Andy Irvine had established himself in the Scotland team, at a time when Bruce Hay was also emerging. Their presence was a factor in his decision to play rugby league, but he had to overcome concerns generated by having witnessed sad scenes at Gala when - on a day he played in a winning sevens team there - one of their former players was refused entry to their clubhouse because he had "taken the money" and spent time playing the other code.

Reassured that he would not be treated that way at his home club - he is delighted to report that it proved true - Fairbairn found his skills ideally suited to rugby league and never looked back in a career during which he shone for both Wigan and Hull Kingston Rovers.

His mother having been born in Newcastle, he was dual-qualified so made his international debut for England at the 1975 World Cup. Two years later he made his Great Britain debut in the next staging - where he appeared in the final, one they lost agonisingly 13-12 to Australia's Kangaroos.

"It was in the balance right to the very end. I missed a kick late on that always gets mentioned, but I also missed a tackle early on which they scored from. No-one ever remembers that except me," he recalls with characteristic honesty.

Yet as Australia and New Zealand prepare to contest the latest Rugby League World Cup final at Old Trafford this afternoon, Fairbairn's mind is not on wistful memories of what might have been but instead is focused on what might yet be. He has been a central figure in the creation of a Scotland team in his sport and, to that end, the past few weeks have brought enormous encouragement, albeit laced with frustration.

The decision by rugby league authorities to pull the funding from the Scottish game just as it has achieved an unprecedented level of profile reflects a lack of vision that could ruin the opportunity that the sport as a whole has created for itself with its most successful international competition run.

Fairbairn is speaking about Scotland, but could be spokesman for the entire rugby league community when he says: "It's the best World Cup we've had and what we've got to do is follow up on it straightaway with what we're going to do in the future. What's happened is fresh in everybody's mind but, if you let that lapse, people soon forget. It's on everybody's mind at the moment and everybody's talking about it so we have to get into the right people and go from there."

Fairbairn never had the chance to play for what he views as his true homeland, so was all the more proud to be asked to coach the first Scotland team to contest the Emerging Nations World Cup in 1995. He managed the team thereafter and was at this World Cup as Scotland Rugby League's ambassador.

"It's great for me to be involved with the lads now," he says of the experience. "Coming through from where I first started playing and still being involved is great. The way the World Cup have organised it and the way Workington in particular accepted us was tremendous. It is very special for Scotland to have established themselves as much as they have. We've just got to continue now."

He draws upon the experience of old friends in expressing growing confidence for the future, despite the funding problems that are currently being addressed.

"A lot of the lads from back home in Kelso came across for the games in Workington and, when they've seen how Scotland rugby league can play, it's built on it even more," he said. "You don't know when you start something like this. You hope it's going to kick off straightaway but at the back of your mind you know it's probably going to take time and we know Scotland's a rugby union country."

That will doubtless remain true for the foreseeable future in rugby terms. However, as genuine Scottish rugby lovers continue to battle in a football-dominated country for hearts and minds, they might be advised to keep their own open to providing greater opportunities for future generations to emulate Valentine, Rose and Fairbairn and experience occasions like the one taking place at Old Trafford today.