It was 30 years ago today that a peppery-hot exchange between Scotland and New Zealand at Murrayfield almost brought the hosts a first victory against the men from the Land of the Long White Cloud.

Towards the end of a pulsating contest, David Johnston's perfectly-weighted kick ahead was pounced on by Jim Pollock, who sprinted over for a try to tie matters at 25-25. Peter Dods was presented with a difficult conversion to make history, but narrowly missed the target. The frustration among some of the Caledonian contingent still lingers, three decades later.

John Rutherford, for instance, was at his indomitable best throughout, which offered Scots in his mould a shot at redemption, following the summer's ill-starred sojourn to New Zealand with the British and Irish Lions, which turned into an All Black trauma for the Scots, not least their coach, Jim Telfer. Yet if there was any sense of inferiority complex when the All Blacks turned up in Edinburgh on November 12, 1983, it was swiftly cast to the wind.

This was payback time with a vengeance.

"I remember the South played them at Gala and were given a right hoicking, but we told each other at the finish, 'Right lads, we've had enough of this!' recalled Rutherford, whose brace of drop goals, along with Dods' penalties, kept Telfer's side in the hunt, despite their opponents' attempts to seize the initiative.

"Make no mistake, the All Blacks were fabulous, and it was a question of clinging on to their coat tails, putting points on the board whenever we were in their territory, and basically stopping them playing, which was easier said than done when guys of the calibre of Bernie Fraser [who scored two of his side's three touchdowns] and Stu Wilson were sparking their magic.

"The thing was, though, that we weren't intimidated by them. We had a top-class pack and they out-rucked New Zealand throughout the game, which didn't happen very often. We had powerhouses among the forwards - David Leslie was just immense; it was as if he was laying down a statement after not being selected for the Lions squad - and with people such as Colin Deans, Jim Calder, the Bear [Iain Milne], and Iain Paxton playing their hearts out, we were always in the hunt. Some of it wasn't pretty, but you had to get in their faces. Standing back was not an option for us, because we had seen how these boys had destroyed the Lions just a few months earlier.

The visitors led 16-15 at the interval; such stalwarts as Fraser, Wilson and Robbie Deans were offering their usual impersonation of greased lightning one moment, and Casper the Friendly Ghost the next. Yet, the home crowd recognised the huge physical effort which their compatriots were displaying and, as Roy Laidlaw recollects, it was as if the players were determined to prove they possessed genuine rugby quality.

"We had a good group of lads and we had gradually formed a strong bond by going to New Zealand in 1981, Australia in 1982 and then the Lions trip for a lot of us, which was a bad experience, so we definitely wanted to prove a point when the All Blacks came to Murrayfield," said Laidlaw, who provided sterling assistance to his colleagues.

"They had given us plenty of stick when we were in New Zealand, so, yes, there was a ferocity about our performance and we put them on the back foot by the finish. You had somebody like Leslie, who had, crazily, missed out on the Lions, but was the European Player of the Year; he put in an immense shift.

"By the end, when Pollock scored his try, we honestly thought we might sneak it but it wasn't an easy conversion, and Dodsy had already landed five penalties, so there was no question of apportioning blame. We have never beaten them in our history but we gained lots of belief from that display and it helped in building our confidence, prior to the 1984 Five Nations Championship [when Jim Aitken's troops famously won the grand slam]."

Rutherford, for his part, felt it was one of the rare afternoons where the All Blacks had been reduced to mere mortals and there was relief etched on their faces at the death, as the prelude to them defeating England at Twickenham a week later. "Of course, I was a little frustrated at the game ending in a draw because the opportunity was there, but we just couldn't get over the line, but that afternoon provided the spark for the slam.

"We had gone toe-to-toe with the best in the world and they couldn't have complained if we had won. They had tanked the Lions but nearly lost to Scotland. And you couldn't underestimate the impact which Jim Telfer had in motivating us for the fray. He was a great coach, who had learned from his troubles and turned things round. Even now, I can still see Jim [Pollock] gathering the ball and scoring and I was thinking to myself, 'Can we do this?' The fans cheered us off as if we had beaten them. We hadn't. But we had shown that they were not invincible and some of us could play a wee bit."

Rutherford, of course, was far better than that. Indeed, Stu Wilson subsequently remarked: "We all knew that John could be a big pain in the bum if you gave him space to let his talent cut loose, so he was always given extra attention."

On one near-magical day in November, even their best almost came a cropper against one of the best Scottish sides ever to run out of the tunnel.