At our first overseas World Cup together my old chum Billy Lothian and I made the most basic of schoolboy errors as we attended one of the opening round matches.

Shirt sleeve weather having inevitably been the order of the day on the High Veldt we had travelled down from Scotland’s base in Pretoria to Johannesburg duly attired and, neither of us working, took advantage of an opportunity that was rare on two fronts, since beer was still banned in Scottish rugby grounds, to grab a cold Castle lagers and settle down.

And then the sun went down just before kick-off and we remembered those schoolboy tales of desert travellers who were baked by day and frozen by night. This was mid-winter in South Africa and, as Billy Connolly would have advised us, we were wearing the wrong clothes.

We were spared, however, by quickening pulses over the next hour and a half or so, however, as we got the chance to savour one of the great days in rugby history. The match was Ireland v New Zealand and it was the night the legend of Lomu was born.

There had been talk, ahead of the tournament, of a whale-sized player named Jonah who had been doing some damage at th4e Hong Kong Sevens, but little more.

That all changed that night as, capitalising fully upon the defence-splitting work of Josh Kronfeld, who was similarly exploding onto the scene, Lomu helped batter Ireland into submission.

It remains a matter of wonder that for all that he is rightly credited with having changed the game, Lomu was destined not to be a World Cup winner, largely as a result of the courage of a Springbok side inspired by Nelson Mandela’s off-field oratory and Joost van der Westhuizen’s on-field self-sacrifice.

However that, for me, was the finest rugby team that has ever taken the field, with Sean Fitzpatrick leading them, Andrew Mehrtens calling the shots at stand off, Jeff Wilson on the other wing and Zinzan Brooke doing everything including dropping goals from the halfway line, as well as Kronfeld and Lomu.

It seemed apt, then, that Heynecke Meyer, South Africa’s head coach, chose what movie buffs were calling ‘Back to the Future’ day – October 21, 2015 was the day Marty McFly and Doc Brown went forward to back in 1985 – to suggest that the current All Black squad now deserves that title.

“I must say this – and I really mean it, it’s not just talk – but this is probably the best team that’s ever played the game,” he asserted.

“Just look at their record the last four years. Usually after the World Cup there’s a decline in performance. Steve (Hansen, New Zealand’s current head coach) was there for eight years as an assistant and most of the coaching staff has gone on but they just got better after the World Cup which just doesn’t happen in world rugby.”

What a match it would be: Richie McCaw pitting his leadership skills against Fitzpatrick and battling with Kronfeld at the breakdown; Dan Carter versus Mehrtens as play-maker; Kieran Reid versus Zinzan; and of course Julian Savea versus Jonah.

Yet, with Savea having two matches in which to surpass the record he now shares with Lomu and Bryan Habana of scoring eight tries in a single World Cup, memories of 1995 prompt another reminder of 1995 that suggests that this weekend will bring the ultimate test for these vaunted All Blacks.

During that tournament we were flabbergasted when it was reported that questions were raised in South Africa’s parliament about how to stop Jonah Lomu.

That was a measure of the sport’s importance and a way was found.

Given, then, that many Kiwis still believe that the Springboks were aided in their cause by a woman known as Suzi the waitress who served the All Blacks dinner the night before that 1995 final, they might want to get a food taster in on Friday evening as history beckons.