Guinness Six Nations Player of the Match Hamish Watson believes his side bounced back well to earn a first victory in three matches with a 52-10 success over Italy at BT Murrayfield.
Two tries apiece from Duhan van der Merwe and Dave Cherry set the Scots on their way in Edinburgh, as Gregor Townsend’s side looked back to their best after defeats against Wales and Ireland.
Darcy Graham, Huw Jones, Scott Steele and Sam Johnson all managed to cross in the resounding victory for the hosts, to leave the Azzurri without a victory in the 2021 Guinness Six Nations.
And Watson was as influential as ever as Scotland recorded their biggest ever margin of victory in the Championship, with 21 carries for 120 metres.
“We said earlier in the week that we were pretty gutted after the last two home defeats, and we needed to put it right today, and I think we did that,” Watson said.
“Italy always come here with a lot of ambition and they’re a very aggressive team, and we knew it was going to be tough the first 10 or 20 minutes, and then we had to build into the game.
“I thought we did that and it was nice to get a good scoreline again.”
It was the visitors who struck first in Edinburgh, as Luca Bigi crossed to give Italy the advantage, before hooker Cherry levelled the scores at the ten-minute mark.
Van der Merwe then put the hosts into the lead three minutes later with his first of the game, and once Scotland took the lead there was no looking back, as Graham and Jones crossed before the half-hour mark to wrap up the bonus point and make the score 24-10 at the break.
It was much the same in the second half, as Cherry got his second of the game four minutes after the break, while Steele marked his first start for his country with the sixth try of the game soon after.
Johnson and Van der Merwe completed a brilliant day at the office for the hosts later in the game, as Scotland looked back to their best with their free-flowing rugby proving almost impossible to stop at times.
And after being punished for their slow start in Edinburgh, Watson believed his side responded perfectly to rewrite the history books ahead of their final match of the Championship against France in a rearranged fixture next Friday.
“It was a really good performance by the boys, we were a bit worried at the start, we probably took our time to get into it a bit, but when we did I thought we did really well,” the flanker said.
“We were clinical when we had the ball and I thought it was a good performance by us overall.”
