No style but Scots triumph

Scotland were denied a bagpipe welcome here but made up for it with a display which simply groaned and droned.

Blowing hard, they just about managed to grind out the maximum five points which offers them a chance of winning their World Cup group.

Against a muscular, no-frills American outfit in the Suncorp Stadium, the Scots delivered a performance which was high on errors and low on discipline, making hard work of securing the four tries required to give them the bonus point they needed to join France at the top of Pool B.

Eventually, it needed Gregor Townsend's old wiles to earn them the critical 'bonus point' try as he dummied and danced over in the 71st minute. Yet when Chris Paterson shot over for the fifth in the dying seconds against a brave defence now nearly out on their feet, bringing his personal tally to 19 points, the result could hardly disguise Scotland's limitations.

They made 18 handling errors, kept getting lectured by fussy referee Jonathan Kaplan for their back-chat and their choice of attacking options was often lamentable. They looked little better than in their unconvincing effort against Japan last week. Should they play like this in Sydney on Saturday, France will bury them.

They were indebted to their powerful Bath winger Simon Danielli who, after the authorities had rather churlishly not allowed the teams to be piped on to the pitch because it was supposedly unfair to the Americans, did his best to entertain the many Scots in the 47,000 crowd. His two tries in just three minutes, one a dazzling, weaving run and the other a barnstorming effort through massed defence, came midway through the half with Scotland 6-3 down.

Prop Gavin Kerr charged down a kick to score just before half-time but when Tom Smith got binned for delving in the ruck, the Scots stalled again for 20 minutes despite a monopoly of possession in a hopelessly error-ridden contest.