Kellock and Seam Lamont are the only survivors from that team in 2006 but after playing a key role as Scotland defeated Italy and Ireland to finish third this time around – the forward insists his colleagues can’t take a step back.

Scottish rugby has long been in the doldrums but after a morale-boosting RBS 6 Nations and with Glasgow sitting top of the RaboDirect PRO12 – Kellock is predicting good times ahead.    

He said: “We have made a lot of progress but we’ve still only won two games which has been disappointing.

“Some of the performances have been great, but we’ve not controlled crucial games at crucial times. We’ll learn from that because there are a lot of young guys in this squad, and they have done brilliantly well.

“I remember us playing well in 2006. We had some great wins, over England and France obviously, but to go away and win in Italy at the end was also important. There are similarities now to then, but what we have to do is make sure we can go and push on again.

“There is no reason at all why this team isn’t capable of competing with and beating all the teams. Wales won it and we could have beaten them, and that’s something that we have to remember.

“For me, the key is we have to continue to compete with them at club level, so that when it comes to facing these guys in the international arena we’re looking at them and saying ‘well, look at our record at club level’ and taking confidence from that, both Glasgow and Edinburgh.

“Man for man they’re not any better than us. In the past I think Wales, and England and Ireland, had perceived superstars, but actually, when you take a step back and look man against man, you have to say that we can compete with these guys easily.”