For the briefest of moments John Barclay thought he was about to be the man who had led Scotland to a first victory over New Zealand as the man whose performance had lit up BT Murrayfield raced clear.

Only the speed of Beauden Barrett, the fastest stand-off in world rugby, denied Stuart Hogg in that final play of the match, as he forced the Scotland full-back into a desperate attempt at an off-load that fell forward.

“I thought here we go, he’s going to go round him and on another day he goes round him. Stuart’s gutted he didn’t but it’s just one of those things,” said Barclay. “But it’s great we took it to them to the last play.”

They had done so from its first and, even as things repeatedly went against them in the course of the 80 minutes, their belief in their ability to do something never done before never waned.

This had been a day on which history was made with a defeat for New Zealand on the rugby field at the hands of a side that have never beaten them before but astonishingly could and perhaps should have seen it happen at both ends of the world.

In the end Scotland’s union players could only get halfway to matching what Fiji’s league players had done in their World Cup quarter-final in Wellington by preventing their opponents from scoring in the opening half. Ultimately the brilliance of Sonny Bill Williams, a product of the 13-man code, allowed the All Blacks to find the way through a Scottish defence that was transformed from the one which allowed Samoa to score five tries a week earlier.

On the down side the home side were only able to take advantage of two of the try-scoring opportunities they created this time around – scant reward for their creativity as, in particular, Hogg offered the best possible demonstration of what the British & Irish Lions had missed in the summer when he was forced home before their Test series with the All Blacks.

The home side took the lead as they had against Samoa a week earlier, by seizing the initiative with purpose – Hogg setting the tone with a break down the right a minute into the game which created a try-scoring opport-unity only for Cornell du Preez, on his first Murrayfield start to knock on.

If there was a criticism to be made of Scotland’s classy first-half performance it was that they failed to capitalise on the myriad opportunities they created.

Coach Gregor Townsend noted afterwards that his men had got into the opposition 22 on 17 occasions in all and two tries might be seen as representing a disappointing return on that, but for all the temptation there might be to put this down as just one more gallant defeat, he was right this time to draw the positives from it.

“The courage to keep on going and also the belief in the squad was great to see and encouraging for the future,” he said. “I think it generated an atmosphere that was one of the best I’ve ever been involved in. It was great Test match, intense and competitive.” The 3-3 scoreline at the interval as a result of a penalty apiece for fly-halves Finn Russell and Barrett, reflected that.

By then Scotland had already started to pay the price for the physicality and pace with which they played, Hamish Watson forced off the field through injury just as his replacement Luke Hamilton was to do in the second half.

That resulted in hooker Stuart McInally having to revert to his former role in the back row, while they had also had to make another change in the front-row earlier than intended with Zander Fagerson suffering a concussion that ended his involvement at half time.

They probably should also have spent part of the first half playing against 14 men when Waisake Naholo was strangely allowed to stay on the pitch after making contact with Hogg in the air, while after another promising start to the second half they had to dig deeper still after Williams made his presence felt, his miss pass putting Codie Taylor in for the game’s opening try and his chip through creating the second for Damian McKenzie.

The Scottish response was manful, Jonny Gray showing the sort of desire required to challenge the best as he squirmed his way over from close range just after Sam Cane had seen the first of two yellow cards to be shown to an All Blacks side that were struggling to cope with the pressure being imposed on them.

In pretty much his last involvement before going off, Williams then inspired the 14 men to re-establish a cushion they needed with a brilliant off-load that let McKenzie send Barrett in for a try they needed to keep them ahead when Hogg’s grubber kick was gathered by Tommy Seymour, who sent Huw Jones in to maintain his remarkable strike-rate in a Scotland shirt.

There were less than four minutes left at that point, but Scottish resolve was exemplified by that last Hogg break, albeit Barrett’s determination to stop him similarly showed just why the All Blacks are the best on the planet.