As he sought to draw inspiration from the past on reclaiming the captaincy of the national team, the example Stuart McInally alighted upon served only to provide a chastening reminder of the way Scotland’s grand rugby traditions have been tarnished in the course of his lifetime.

The Edinburgh skipper, who led Scotland on tour last summer and again when they last faced Wales at the start of their autumn Test series, was handed the reins once again this week when Greig Laidlaw was dropped to the bench and, for all that yet another campaign was effectively rendered a failure when they lost in Paris a fortnight ago, he said they can get all the motivation they need from knowing what they are representing.

“The players are determined to put in a performance that everybody is proud of, first of all within the group and then within the whole stadium, everybody supporting Scotland,” he said.

“It is not something we ever take lightly pulling on that Scotland jersey. As a group we talk about it a lot and constantly relate back to the history of the thistle and the people who have worn it before us.”

He noted that head coach, Gregor Townsend, whose only major trophy success as a Scotland player was as part of the last-ever Five Nations Championship winning side before the turn of the Millennium, is fond of reliving past glories.

“Gregor is big on watching clips of old Scotland teams scoring tries at Murrayfield,” said McInally. “Even in the changing rooms, when you look on your peg, there’s a list of everyone who has worn the jersey before you. Not that you would ever be likely to forget about the history this jersey has, but there are so many ways to be motivated for Scotland. That’s just one of them.”

That run of 20 campaigns without a title win represents an unwanted Scottish record, though and when invited to offer that example of what he personally looks back to, the 28-year-old, who was born in August, 1990, reached back to the last time the national team was able to celebrate a title win on the field, the 1999 triumph only having been secured when Wales beat England the following day.

“Well obviously we look back to the 1990 Grand Slam. We’ve seen a lot of those clips over the last few years,” he said.“We take inspiration from teams before us who have worn the thistle… and won something. Yeah, we get very excited to think that we could join them and be as successful as they were. We know that, to get there, we need to work so hard. There are numerous examples of Scotland games that we take inspiration from.”

Sadly, from a Scottish perspective there are not, of course, the failures of the past two decades accentuated by the successes of their Celtic neighbours during a period that has seen England and France fail to properly capitalise on their vastly superior resources, allowing Wales to win four Six Nations titles, three of them with Grand Slams, while Ireland have also won four, with two Grand Slams.

Scottish rugby has meanwhile been subjected to a sustained campaign of hype-ridden, expectation realignment, an environment that sits alongside a team management approach based on positive messaging, regardless of the evidence presented by inconvenient facts represented in results and tables. Naturally, then, in promising to lead by example rather than through inspirational rhetoric, McInally reported as he must, that he and his colleagues remain assured of their capacity to make it unlucky 13 for Wales after a national record run of a dozen successive wins.

“There’s a great amount of belief in the squad,” he asserted.”It’s off the back of performances we’ve had in the jersey before. We’ve fallen short of our expectations in this tournament, definitely... we won the first game and have lost the next two, but confidence comes from winning and belief is something this squad has. We’ve been building it since Gregor took over.”

There is, of course, always hope and as well as Welsh troubles off the field, it is fuelled by what had been a decent run on home soil prior to their defeat at the hands of Ireland a month ago.

“We can’t win the championship but we can win tomorrow,” McInally maintained.

“We’re at home and we don’t go down at home without a fight. All we’re focused on is our group and going out there and playing at home in front off a sellout BT Murrayfield. That’s really exciting for the players. Not only exciting, but something we embrace as a pressure as well. There is expectation from people that come and watch us and we love that. We love that pressure and we want to make sure we do everybody proud. The goals we set at the start of the tournament we’ve fallen short of, but we can beat Wales and that’s what we’re excited about.”