Scotland v South Africa: Joe Ansbro's first run ensures he's centre of attention

• Elusive action: Ansbro passed his first Test with flying colours, answering the toughest of questions from the world champions confidently. Photograph: Ian Rutherford

He may not have been one of last week's zeroes, but he was certainly one of yesterday's heroes. He was, as defence coach Graham Steadman said, "simply outstanding".

"They asked one or two questions of Joe but all credit is due to him because he handled that brilliantly," said Steadman.

"He has only been here (Murrayfield] about five times and was called in late. Remember, this is a huge step up for a player who normally comes off the bench for Northampton. But Joe does a lot of video analysis work and knows his opponents inside out. I've watched him for years and he's very bright; I've always rated his decisions under pressure, his work-rate and the fact that he always seems to be in the right place at the right time. All of that was there today."

Steadman has a point. Against the All Blacks, Scotland's back line looked dangerously porous, as if all the men from the land of the long white cloud had to do was push at the door to see it spring open.

Yesterday, the Springboks applied their size 12s to that same door, but this time Ansbro and Co held firm. Only when the Boks went for raw forward power did they ever look like muscling their way over, and by then it was too late, with Flip Van Der Merwe's soft try with ten minutes to go bringing them close but not close enough.

For much of the match South Africa ran at the channel between ten and 12, hoping to make the most of Dan Parks' defensive frailties. It took a heroic effort from Graeme Morrison and man of the match Johnny Barclay to plug that gap, but still the Springboks persisted, never intentionally running it wide.

Coach Peter de Villiers' coat was on the shoogliest of pegs even before yesterday, with reports that he needed to win three out of the four Tests on tour to keep his job. If he loses his job on the back of yesterday's performance it would be no surprise; not because his side got beaten by an inspired Scotland, but because it beggars belief that, no matter whether the conditions mitigated against expansive rugby, there was such a paucity of invention that they never even bothered to have a run at Ansbro to see what the new boy was made of.

The 25-year-old was, after all, a late call-up and playing for Northampton he hasn't yet formed a partnership with any of the Scotland back division. If ever there was a player who needed to be isolated and run at, who should have been made to work and put under relentless pressure, it was surely Ansbro. Instead, the frustrated Scot for most of the first half was merely an interested observer.

Born in Glasgow and raised in Galloway, where he played junior rugby for Stewartry, Ansbro came of age in a rugby sense while a student at Cambridge University studying natural sciences, a course that generally attracts the brightest and most diligent students. He plays like that, too, a cerebral man, one who thinks about his position.

That perhaps explains why, when the call came, he didn't put a foot wrong.

If Jean De Villiers wasn't aware of the outside centre's work before yesterday, he'll certainly remember Ansbro after a crunching tackle halfway through the first half, which was his first big contribution to the cause. There were more to come, too, notably a sprightly run through heavy traffic on the Springboks' 22 with the first half about to draw to a close.

The second half was also characterised by some effective marshalling of De Villiers, especially with just over ten minutes to go when the Springboks tried to counter from their own 22 and Ansbro cut the Springbok danger man off at the knees, a good job given that there was no cover behind him. A similarly crucial tackle on quicksilver fullback Zane Kirchner with five minutes to go, with South Africa in full cry in their search for the winning try, will also go into the Ansbro scrapbook.

Not that he seemed to be aware of too many specifics in his game. In fact he couldn't remember any incidents from the match at all, a fact that he put down to his total focus and to the emotion of the occasion witnessed by a large number of his family. "This is something you dream of, and something I'd like a bit more of," he said after the game. "It's quite difficult to put into words what it means to me, but it was certainly emotional."

Asked what it meant to be the first black player to represent Scotland, he said simply: "My ambition has always been to play for Scotland, and I've been lucky enough to have been brought up to believe that the colour of your skin isn't important, so it's not something that's really been on my mind."

If it had have been, it would have been wasted effort. Contrary to much of what has been written over the past few days, Ansbro is not the first black player to have represented Scotland. That honour goes to one Alf Clunies-Ross, who was born and buried in the Cocos Islands, a collection of coral atolls in the Indian Ocean. A medical student in St Andrews in the late 1870s, Clunies-Ross was not only an excellent batsman, but also played alongside his brother Alex for Dundee against Aberdeen University at soccer in 1869.

More to the point, the young medical student was an excellent rugby player, and after moving from St Andrews to Edinburgh University, he played in the first ever international rugby match, when a part of the 20-man Scotland team that beat England at Raeburn Place in 1871.

If anything links Clunies-Ross, circled above, and Ansbro, it's less their colour than the fact that both are clever, tidy footballers whose debut against a powerful adversary went better than either could dared have hoped. That, however, is where the similarities end. Clunies-Ross never played for Scotland again but, on the basis of yesterday's showing, there is little doubt that Ansbro's wish to play for Scotland again will be granted.