Finally, the finishing line. After 12 Tests involving 53 different Scottish players, the international year will end for Gregor Townsend's team on Saturday evening when the Pumas hit Murrayfield.

They have done some chopping and changing in personnel between Tests, but not a whole lot. There is a core of them who have played the vast majority of those matches and a couple who have played every single one.

Step forward Edinburgh's Emiliano Boffelli, goal-kicker, try-scorer, all-round freak show. With his boundless energy Boffelli would have the Duracell Bunny cowering in a corner and begging for mercy.

Pivotal in beating New Zealand in New Zealand during the Rugby Championship and the key man when the Pumas denied Scotland a series win in the summer, Boffelli has had an outrageously good year.

Scotland's 2022? It's been eventful, put it that way. A new captain in Jamie Ritchie, a new chapter in the Finn and Gregor melodrama and a new renaissance man.

At the start of the year Richie Gray was so far out of the international loop that he was almost written off as retired. He's come storming back, albeit he won't be around on Saturday. Too much storming. He went into a ruck against the All Blacks and has come out of it with a ban.

Gray's return, along with Rory Darge's emergence and Darcy Graham's continuing transformation into the Scottish Cheslin Kolbe, have been the highs in a season of too many lows. If 2020 and 2021 represented largely steady progress then 2022 has been a brick wall.

Scotland need a victory against Argentina to remind people that they still have it within them to win games against sides ranked higher than them in the world rankings. The Pumas are sixth. Scotland are now down to ninth.

After one game of the Six Nations earlier in the year those positions were the other way around.

Remember February and the win against England? Days of innocence. Scotland didn't even play all that well and still won. A sign of a team on the up. The year stretched out in front of them like a giant runway of opportunity. Was this the moment that would finally bring a challenge for the championship?

Then, like a wet kipper to the face, came Wales, then came the Edinburgh Six going out on the town and the cringemaking press conferences that followed. Then came the throwing away of a series in Argentina and the latest eruption of the Finn and Gregor soap opera.

We were told that Finn Russell was now fourth-choice fly-half. When he outlined his reasons why Ross Thompson, the rarely spotted Glasgow number 10, was now deemed to be ahead of Russell, Scottish rugby fans looked at coach Gregor Townsend in a way you'd look at a man with two heads.

They lost a game they should have won against the Wallabies. Against Fiji they won a game the memory of which had all but disappeared before anybody had crossed the Water of Leith. Russell was out, then he was in. Another truce. But another defeat. Scotland could have beaten the All Blacks, but didn't.

We can talk about the strength of Scotland's team on paper and their potential and the pockets of excellence they deliver, but it's just noise. Played 11, won four, lost seven. That's the reality of their year. And it's deflating.

On Saturday they are either going to conclude a turbulent year on a decent note and with some optimism going into 2023 or on a bum note that will bring on the rancour about the direction this team is going in.

It only gets harder from here. England (away), Wales (home), France (away), Ireland (home), Italy (home), then onwards to the World Cup, where they will face South Africa in their opening game. That means facing teams currently ranked first, second, third and fifth in the world in their next six tournament games after Saturday.

This is the fourth time Scotland will play Argentina in the last five months. There is hardly a novelty value to it, but it's critical and dangerous. The Pumas, coached by the irrepressible Michael Cheika, should be exhausted, but then again they have shown an ability of late to do things others thought them incapable of doing.

All predictions said they would lose to New Zealand and England, but they didn't. The back five of their pack - Matias Alemanno, Tomas Lavanini, Juan Martin Gonzalez, Marcos Kremer and Pablo Matera - are the ferocious crew that did for the All Blacks in Christchurch in late August and England at Twickenham a fortnight ago.

They looked tired in defeat against Wales last week, a state of weakness which, you fancy, Cheika isn't going to tolerate two weeks running. If they were flat at the Principality Stadium the fear is that their last Test of a gruelling run is going to provoke one big final blast from them to end the year.

Lord knows what the ravages of the Six Nations will do to his squad, but the team Townsend has picked for Saturday is pretty close to the side that will start that tournament, injuries permitting.

Fraser Brown will be challenged by the other hookers, Gray the elder and Scott Cummings will come back into contention for one of the lock spots and either Hamish Watson or Rory Darge will go into the back row.

We are assuming that Russell stays in the fold. A dangerous assumption, for sure, but we'll run with it anyway.

So, that's only three shy of a fully loaded XV against the Pumas and possibly five short of a first-choice 23. With home advantage. Against a team that's been on the go virtually non-stop for five months, it's a must-win if anybody is to retain any vague hope that this team can come again.

This will be a great examination of Scotland's mettle - a test they desperately need to pass.