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Simon Taylor returned to Scotland’s back row after 11 months out with a knee injury, and his stamina was impressive. Williams, who had to apologise for criticising Irish touch judge Simon McDowell in Paris three weeks ago, said: “It was the correct call.”Paterson’s longest effort heralded the final 10 minutes, and Italy suffered again as Andrea lo Cicero went too low at a scrum. After 64 minutes, the Scots’ claims for a try foundered on touch judge Alan Lewis calling not one but two passes forward in the move that ended with Sean Lamont going over at the left corner. A rare backs’ move of quality earned a position for Scotland’s former captain to strike again. “If there’s not a good clean-out for either side, then it gets stagnant.” Too true, Stu. Orquera missed the kick from the 10-metre line, preserving the Scots’ slender lead.Masi tripped Paterson – he dusted himself down to make it 9-3. Early in the second half, Jon Petrie was penalised for dabbling at an Italian ruck, and Stuart Dickinson, the Australian referee, told Bortolami, Italy’s captain.

Not that Italy were threatening in possession: Orquera struck a ponderous tempo that his centres were unable to bring to a crescendo.As a source of entertainment, the referee-spectator speaker link was a boon. But De Marigny missed again after 26 minutes, while Paterson coolly scored from 45 metres soon after.A welter of knock-ons and regular incursions by the respective sponge men – bruised egos to be treated, perhaps – mitigated against any sort of flow.Scotland’s scrum was reassuringly solid throughout, but they got through the first quarter without once visiting the Azzurri 22. The two teams were so keen to go for goal that both Alessandro Troncon and Dan Parks were chided by the referee for deliberately throwing the ball forward rather than playing the advantage. Those actions spoke of the merest measure of confidence returning, albeit the size of the smallest shots in the pubs off Princes Street.The Scots took an early lead when Marco Bortolami put a hand in a ruck, then De Marigny failed to punish Simon Webster for not releasing, but equalised after 20 minutes when Scotland went offside. “You can only answer criticism as a coach by the actions of your players,” said Williams. But apart from showing the dangers of wholesale substitutions, it changed little.Undeniably these are bleak days for Scotland. Williams achieved his first win in the Championship at the eighth attempt – the Scots’ last Six Nations victory was here in March 2003 – but it was mostly dire stuff.

The faultless goal-kicking of Chris Paterson, unmatched by anything offered by the Azzurri, ended Scotland’s increasingly anxious wait for a Six Nations victory and dissipated not a moment too soon the pressure building on their Australian coach, Matt Williams. Sighs of relief all round in Auld Reekie, unless you happened to be Italian. “There’s no answer other than to get up again and work hard,” said John Kirwan, the Italy coach.Well, possibly one other answer: find someone as deadly accurate as Paterson who, with six successful penalties out of six, kicked the Italians where it hurts. Short of wheeling the retired Diego Dominguez on to the field in a bath chair, there is no immediate chance of that.Roland de Marigny was hit-and-miss in Italy’s 38-8 defeat by Wales a fortnight ago, and the South African-born full-back let his adopted country down again with two missed penalties in the first half here. “We just needed to kick more points than the opposition and we did that.”All of which left poor Kirwan still without a win at Murrayfield.

He never got the chance to play here as an All Black wing, having been deemed too young for the tour of 1983 and too old for the 1993 trip. He has lost in Edinburgh three times as coach of Italy and now needs to find a solution to what he acknowledges as “the mental problems” of his place kickers.Perhaps he could borrow Dr Tony Westerby, the sports psychologist who helped put Scotland in a winning frame of mind yesterday It was all so different in Kirwan’s playing days. All it took back then was a little pre-match dance, and an all black cloak of invincibility.. “As Moses said, when he parted the Red Sea, that will give them [the Scotland players] a lot of confidence,” he responded in the interview room later, when the sterility of the play and the sustained booing by the crowd were mentioned. It was such a sobering, sterile contest it was unworthy of being a wooden-spoon decider A plastic spoon, perhaps.Not that Williams could have cared. Between them, the Bangor old boy and the fly-half from Cordoba missed three eminently potable penalties and a dropped goal as Scotland stood marooned in their own half for 53 minutes, as becalmed as the Ancient Mariner’s cursed vessel.In their anaemic change shirts, Williams’ men looked like a whitewash waiting to happen.

“A rugby ball is like a bar of gold and we must treat it accordingly,” the Australian had written in his programme notes. When his players managed to get the ball in their hands, though, they treated it like a spelk-ridden wooden spoon.Webster saw it sparingly and got no farther with it than the opposition 10-metre line. Each one rubbed salt into the wounds of Kirwan, a one-time butcher.As a life-long teetotaller, Paterson was a suitable match winner. Instead, it was the boot of Chris Paterson that came to Scotland’s – and Williams’ – rescue. The Edinburgh full-back kicked like a mule: six place kicks out of six, from a full range of angles and distances.