Vern Cotter’s Scotland spread their wings to feast on off-colour Italy

Three weeks out from the real thing, Vern Cotter’s World Cup plans are comfortably on track. Having squeezed home with a late try in Turin last weekend, a much stronger Scotland – seven guaranteed World Cup starters were relieved of their cotton-wool blankets and played for the first time – were far too much for a weaker Italy side.

So after going almost a year without a victory Scotland head for Paris and a buoyant France, with the momentum of two wins, the second a record over Italy, in a week. By then Cotter will have given the organisers his squad then, 24 hours later on Tuesday, announce the 31, many of whom formed the core of Saturday’s starting XV, playing with considerable self-belief and ambition from the start.

By half-time, with the score at 21-7 and replacements about to ruin continuity if not the flow of tries, the game was in the bag and the Mexican wave about to lap the stadium. A sunny day at Murrayfield, it seemed a long way from the dog days of the Six Nations whitewash. Not that the coach was entirely happy: “It was a mixed bag,” Cotter said, “three tries came from intercepts which says something. We threw a few balls on the ground and have to be more accurate. There is certainly a lot more to be done, but we are improving.”

With Cotter thought to have sorted most positions the few issues to be decided included who would partner Tommy Seymour on the wing, with both the candidates getting a start – Tim Visser, who once scored tries for fun, but had not crossed the whitewash in a year, on the left and Sean Lamont, whose 34-year-old legs have now earned him 96 caps on the other. The head scratching will continue as they both scored twice. It was the Glasgow man who stole an early lead in this particular talent contest getting on the end of Finn Russell’s ninth-minute chip for the first try and then adding a intercept try 52 minutes later.

Visser will have earned brownie points for industry only to lose them for failing to control a chip which then ricocheted into the arms of Michele Campagnaro for Italy’s try. Against that Visser did run in a third Scotland try 18 minutes after the break and followed it with an eye-catching 70-metre dash for his second.

Then there was the question of the centres. Like England, Scotland have issues, but rather in reverse with the gamble being whether Alex Dunbar will be fit in time after knee surgery in March, or whether the starters Mark Bennett, always constructive and Peter Horne, plus Matt Scott, this time coming off the bench and Richie Vernon, in reserve answer the question without the orthopaedic worries.

Finally there is the back-row conundrum and the question of John Barclay, the Scarlet who was all over the breakdown and drove over for the second try but who has been ignored by Scotland for the past 18 months, as opposed to John Hardie, a late Kiwi import. Ryan Wilson, described by Cotter this week as exceptional but returning after a ban imposed following an assault in a kebab shop, also did his case no harm.

For a nation which still dotes on memories of John Jeffrey and Findlay Calder it would be quite something to field a back row in the first match against Japan without any of them born in Scotland. However, with David Denton from Zimbabwe, the Kiwis Blair Cowan and Hardie, plus the South African Josh Strauss, who only meets the three-year residency qualifications the day after the tournament starts, that is entirely possible.

Up front all eyes were on the meeting of the front rows, Matias Agüero, Leonardo Ghiraldini and Martin Castrogiovanni, versus Alasdair Dickinson, Ross Ford and new boy WP Nel for Scotland, very much centre of attention after a decade of Euan Murray at tighthead.

Nel, seen as something of a coup for Edinburgh when they brought him from the Free State Cheetah’s specifically with Scotland in mind, got his first taste of Test rugby in Turin but made first start and there was much back-slapping when the pack won penalties at the first three scrums, the second leading to Greg Laidlaw giving Scotland the lead in the fifth minute.

Nel may not be the biggest prop at the World Cup but has the reputation of a scrummager and the Scotland pack continued to eke out the penalties. Paris will tell us more.