Scotland stutter to win over Samoa

Scotland's transition under Ian McGeechan continued at a painfully slow pace with a 31-8 win over a depleted Samoa and there must be doubts about whether they can get up to speed before taking on France in the Six Nations on February 4.

The laboured nature of Saturday's win at Murrayfield suggests McGeechan may find the deadline hard to meet. Despite winning possession 33 times inside the Samoa 22, they only crossed the line four times.This was in part due to Samoa's superb defence but the impotency of the Scottish outside backs was again evident and they only made headway when the visitors tired after the break.

Jon Petrie, the No.8 who scored Scotland's only first-half try, said: 'We did dome good things but we also made some silly mistakes. Its a steep learning curve to be on. 'But we've got three months to work on the areas of our game that we need to improve.' Scotland had to rely on Gregor Townsend's kicking for an 18-8 lead at the break but they added tries from Kenny Logan, Tom Smith and Alan Bulloch in the second half. McGeechan said: 'We've brought in new personnel and the last three weeks have been very positive in trying to create what we want as a team.'