Somehow it was fitting that Samoa achieved their feat after a stamina-sapping 28 minutes of an epic semi-final against England.  Yes, 28 minutes, the end of the second period of extra-time, before Lolo Lui wobbled over a drop-goal from 29 metres.

And what of Scotland?  After yesterday’s heroics the day started on a despondent note for the home fans in the 12,741 crowd as they were knocked out in the quarter-final stages of the cup. Yet character and skill epitomised their riposte as South Africa and Argentina (an omen there perhaps?) were seen off for Scotland to win the plate and finish the tournament in fifth place – far above their seeding.

Samoa’s 15-12 semi-final success in the cup was a hard call on England who had had a chance to win the tie in normal time.  But Ben Gollings’ conversion of Greg Barden’s try rebounded off the right upright and that was that.

England had rained on the magnificent parade Scotland had conjured up on day one with 19-7 victory in the quarter-final, but Scotland recovered from a tentative display against their neighbours, to re-ignite the flame of passion and creativity from 24 hours previously, pulling back from a 0-14 deficit to over-turn South Africa 19-14 in the plate semi-final and then score one of the tries of the day, started by Ben Cairns behind his own line and finished by the Edinburgh centre under the Argentine posts in the plate final.

A stunning reminder, if it were needed, of the quality of rugby on display at Murrayfield this weekend came in a revealing statistic from the IRB.

The ball was in play during Saturday’s 24 matches for longer than any other day on the entire IRB circuit, averaging almost seven and half minutes in play in each tie – more than 50%.

Today’s other honours saw Russia capture the Shield Final against Canada; Wales, buttressed by Chris Kinloch, the Glasgow Warriors and Currie back who was called into their injury-depleted squad, win the Bowl final 26-10 against Kenya; then Scotland’s 19-0 Plate Final against the Pumas.

It spoke volumes for Samoa’s endurance that they saw off Australia 41-14 in the cup final and instead of a Kiwi haka, we had a South Pacific Siva tau to bring down the curtain on a memorable weekend.