HARD HITTING VIEW

Scotland were on a hiding to nothing going into their penultimate match of this year’s Six Nations Championship.

Only a win, and a convincing one at that, would be anything close to satisfactory.

After all, Italy have been poor this year and until yesterday, had failed to score any points in the second half of their previous three matches.

Gregor Townsend’s team passed muster, but only just.

The Italians will have hoped that a victory over Scotland could be their turning point and they certainly began the match with real intent in the sunshine of Rome.

But there were some moments which let the home side down. Their defensive work was not of the standard of other teams in the Six Nations and Scotland were able to exploit that.

And the hosts were unfortunate that an interception by Ali Price led to a Scottish score, when it was looking every bit like it would be the other way around as the Italians pressed for the line.

The Scottish scrum-half, winning his 50th cap for his country, was back to the form that earned him a starting place for the British & Irish Lions last year.

He varied his game well with some excellent sniping around the base of rucks and his kicking was almost inch-perfect.

‘ Some of the kicking... seemed aimless and often pointless

His defensive interception turned the tide towards Scotland and his break in the second half set up a wonderful score for his captain, even though the replays showed that his pass went around four metres forward.

Bizarrely, this wasn’t even queried by the match officials.

It seemed like Scotland were happy to give Italy the ball, trusting in their defensive systems until their hosts made a mistake.

Some of the kicking in the game seemed aimless and often pointless from both sides, but when you have someone as good on the counterattack as Stuart Hogg, you need to put pressure on him.

Yet it was a tactic that paid off and Scotland were quick and effective in capitalising on Italian errors.

To their credit, Italy never gave up and finished the game more strongly than the Scots, who perhaps knew that the game was beyond their opponents at that point.

The Azzurri at last recorded some points in the second half and it brought some respectability to the final score. But there was a difference in class between the two teams.

Scotland now face a difficult trip to Dublin, where they face Ireland on St Patrick’s Day.

Ireland have a psychological advantage over Scotland at the moment and they will undoubtedly believe that they will end up victors on such a totemic day.

Scotland have a huge hill to climb to defeat the Irish but St Patrick’s Day has been kind to Scotland in the past.