FIVE years ago there were inquests taking place in every rugby club in the land after Scotland conceded 51 points to the All Blacks.

Yet yesterday Jim Telfer, of all people, was making excuses for conceding precisely that number of points to a small Pacific country that did not reach the last World Cup finals.

''Although there's a big difference in the scores, it wasn't as though they had a lot of pressure and scored tries. They were running them in from halfway,'' he said.

With a try count of 7-2, however, it may be stretching things a bit to put it all down to breakaways as, no doubt, early opponents of the counter-attacking Italian football sides did in the sixties.

Not that Telfer could ever be accused of such naivety. Indeed, the reverse scenario may well apply, with others now eroding Scotland's long-held advantages of superior coaching and planning to bring their own strengths to bear.

Whatever, a reassessment of Scotland's place in the world's rugby ratings now seems overdue. A third-place finish in the 1991 World Cup has been followed by years of steady decline, culminating in a series of lacklustre performances this past year.

Meanwhile, the likes of Italy and, apparently now Fiji, have moved alongside, if not beyond, Scotland. That these sides can no longer be underestimated was raised by Fiji coach Brad Johnstone, the former All Black who should know.

''I don't think our forwards were as weak as they possibly might have thought, especially in the scrums where they expected to blow through us,'' he observed.

''It didn't quite happen the way they wanted.''

Perhaps a case can be made that the level of expectation is too high considering rugby's minority status in Scotland.

However, that can be set aside the way a team from a nation of 750,000 people - and hitherto thought of simple as sevens specialists with little cognisance of the technicalities of XV-a-side rugby - proved capable of sweeping aside much better resourced opponents yesterday.

Unless something dramatic takes place, like Telfer's now legendary scrummaging session on last year's British Lions trek to South Africa, the outlook for this tour looks bleak indeed with even sterner opponents ahead.

''Scots people can dig deep and improve,'' Telfer asserted, a sentiment echoed by his opposite number in words that almost sounded patronising but were meant to be magnanimous.

''If they played like that against Australia tomorrow I would fear for them, but they've got a few games before the Tests.

''Hopefully, when they pull themselves together, they'll be very competitive. Scots with their backs to the wall are very hard to beat,'' suggested Johnstone.

''Maybe we've just done them a favour.''