YOU could see Vern Cotter’s point, up to a point, when he refused to get carried away by Scotland’s six-try triumph over Italy on Saturday. This was, indeed, only a friendly, and more demanding tasks await, both in this weekend’s final warm-up game in Paris and then in the Rugby World Cup itself.

But perhaps if the head coach had been around to witness some of the dour and desperate struggles that these two have fought out over the years he would have been more indulgent towards his players. This was a record victory for the fixture, surpassing Scotland’s 47-15 win before the 2003 tournament. The team scored six tries in the match, which is more than they have managed in the whole of some recent Six Nations Championships. And, most significantly, they showed they are continuing to improve.

True, Italy looked out of sorts from the opening minutes, when they were penalised several times in the scrum, and were a pale imitation of the team that should have beaten the Scots in Turin a week earlier. But even allowing for the limitations of the opposition, this was an extremely encouraging outing by Scotland, who began the match with something close to Cotter’s first-choice XV on the field.

The front five will certainly be selected en masse for the big games at the World Cup, and among the backs Greig Laidlaw, Finn Russell, Mark Bennett and Stuart Hogg are also first picks. Ryan Wilson and David Denton put up a case to join them, although the availability of Josh Strauss will complicate selection in the back row.

The wingers, Sean Lamont and Tim Visser, scored two tries apiece, the others going to Bennett and John Barclay, who had an impressive outing at openside but faces a very close call if he is going to make it into Cotter’s final 31 for the tournament.

In short, nearly everything went right for Scotland. The scrum and lineout functioned well, the defence did a far better job of halting the Italian driving maul, and the backs were creative with ball in hand, and a menace when Italy were in possession.

Scotland had been at their best the previous week when they increased the tempo in the second half and spread the play wide, but this fixture is usually such a close contest that we have to wait for 40 minutes or more before being offered that kind of enterprising play. Here, by contrast, we saw it from the start, and the home team were rewarded for their enterprise with a 10-0 lead within ten minutes. Laidlaw knocked over the first of his four penalties, and also converted Lamont’s try, scored after the wing had collected a clever chip towards the corner from Russell.

The captain added two more penalties before playing a part in Italy’s only score, claimed by Michele Campagnaro after Visser had fumbled a high ball on to Laidlaw’s head. Tommy Allan converted the try to take the score to 16-7, but that was as good as got for the Italians, who before half-time were a man down, when Francesco Minto was yellow-carded for offside, and another seven points down, after Barclay had forced his way over for his team’s second try.

In the second half, Visser claimed the third from a long floated pass by Russell, then the Italians contributed further to their own downfall with some desperate attacking. Lamont and Visser both scored their second from interceptions, and then Bennett picked off a loose ball to claim his team’s sixth try. Michele Rizzo was sinbinned late on for a stamp on Gordon Reid, but it was clear long before then that Italy coach Jacques Brunel has a lot of problems on his hands.