When Stuart Hogg ran out at BT Murrayfield to earn his 100th cap for Scotland, only four other people on the planet knew what that special feeling was like.

612 kicks in play, 126 restarts, 3,398 passes. The 2023 Guinness Six Nations is over. Ireland are Grand Slam champions.

A Championship with a lot of promise ultimately ended without a win for Italy but the Azzurri were still able to show that last year’s success in Wales was no flash in the pan.

Scotland broke new ground in the 2023 Guinness Six Nations and finished in the top three for the first time in five years but there remains a sense of ‘what might have been’ around Gregor Townsend’s side.