Scotland head coach Frank Hadden assessed the damage of the 37-17 defeat to Italy and urged his players to use the experience as part of their learning process ahead of the World Cup.
Six minutes of madness at the start of the match gifted the Italians a 21-0 lead, from which the Scots never recovered.
A charged down Phil Godman clearance and two interceptions from Chris Cusiter passes provided the visitors with three easy touchdowns.
But Hadden refused to condemn his players, and also insisted that Scotland must experiment with the more loose style of rugby if they are to progress as a team in the long term.
Had the match been vital to their World Cup chances, Hadden admits he would have played it differently.
He said: “If we were playing Italy next week in the World Cup then we would settle for a more conservative approach to the game and an 18-12 victory – because we think our defence is capable of snuffing out their attack.
“However, while it’s good to have that option up our sleeve, we are currently trying to get better at attacking, so that we can threaten at a higher level if we have to.
“Risk and reward, it’s a tough call. I honestly believe that we could have gone out and played as conservatively as we did in Rome last year and engineered the same result – but prior to the World Cup is that what we need?
“We know we can do that, we need to find out a bit more about this team, and what we have found out is who steps forward and who steps back under severe pressure.
“We have never said we’ve got the best squad in the world, but we think we’ve got a squad that is capable of making continual progress right through to the World Cup – whether Saturday becomes a truly negative experience or not, we’ll not know until the Ireland game.
“We believe our players are perfectly capable of recovering from what has happened.
“We have isolated all the incidents and looked through what happened, and we take our hat off to Italy, to their rushing defence, and to their success in manipulating us the way they did.
“We had a very good debrief today (Monday), a very honest appraisal of the situation, and looked very closely at the factors involved – and we’re still in a confident frame of mind for the game against Ireland.”