If it wasn’t for a duff decision by a TMO against France and a piece of unforgivable indiscipline by Pierre Schoeman in Rome, Scotland would be going to Dublin this weekend with a real chance of winning the Guinness Six Nations Championship and the Grand Slam. Nobody saw that as a possibility at the start of the tournament, and, lo, it did not come to pass as the arithmetic says we can’t win the title.

No use blaming individuals. The team failed to win two matches they should have won, and if you play as a squad then you win or lose as a squad. A cliche, yes, but also a truism.

At least we can see that this Scotland squad very much plays as a squad and the teamwork in this tournament has been outstanding.

Yet the losses indicate something I have felt about Scotland’s performances in recent years – we are just not hard enough when it matters. Scotland should have won against France at Murrayfield and against Italy in Rome, but especially on Saturday, we let the Azzurri off the hook, big style. Why?

Because we don’t kill off the opposition when we can, we don’t pummel them when they’re on the back foot, we don’t send them off down the way to dusty death,........

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