Not since 1990 really, and maybe fleetingly in 1999, has anyone really feared the Scots. That time back in 1990, they could play: Gavin and Scott Hastings, Finlay Calder, John Jeffrey, Derek White, Gary Armstrong and David Sole - tough men, good players - British Lions the lot.
There was a smart coaching duo back then, too: Ian McGeechan and Jim Telfer. They were the ultimate good cop, bad cop pairing - Telfer often more fearsome than any opposition players the Scots would meet on the field.
The 1990 vintage were memorably good. They won a Grand Slam and then came out to New Zealand and came within a whisker of a victory at Eden Park. What is hard to recall now is that not only were they a good side, they had belief and passion.
Just this week Sean Lineen, the original kilted Kiwi who played second-five in that team, recalled how the team had realised after losing the first test in Dunedin that they had been crippled by their respect for the All Blacks: a respect that had bordered on fear.
Lineen said that captain David Soul's wife had rung after the loss to say that it looked like the team had been beaten before kick-off. They reviewed the tape and sure enough the body language during the haka was defensive, timid even.