Six Nations 2016: Italy vs Scotland - Scots talk a good game... but can they finally win one?

“Look,” said Vern Cotter, trademark baseball cap tugged low on his forehead, “the win is going to come. This team will win a game.” The instinctive response from any Scot to their coach’s stern insistence is simple, and now served with a deep-fried dollop of desperation: “Yes, but when?”

It is 10 games and more than two years since Scotland last came out on top in a Six Nations contest, back when Cotter, hands confidently on the helm at Clermont, was one of the coming men among Europe’s coaching elite.

That scrap-book success arrived on Scotland’s last trip to Rome, Duncan Weir’s drop-goal pinged over the posts in the final minute to snatch victory at the Stadio Olympico. Since then nothing; nine games in the Championship and nine straight defeats, seven of them on Cotter’s watch. Yet, as the team coach turned out of Murrayfield at lunchtime to set out on the road back to Rome, the refrain remains stubbornly the same from coach and players: we are nearly there, stick with us.

“It’s tight margins, as usual, the same old story,” said Tim Visser, the Harlequins wing recalled in place of Sean Lamont in the only change to the starting XV against Wales. “But it really is. You can turn your whole Six Nations around within a game. That is the message: stay positive, believe in the way we’ve played, because it has been working for large parts of the year already.

“We have learned over the years to try and stay upbeat because the stats do say we lose a lot of games. We are a stubborn bunch and we don’t let any media or the public put us down because we believe in the way we play and we have to stay confident.”

At times in the World Cup Cotter’s Scotland worked, and worked well. Both losses to England and Wales were close on the scoreboard. But they were still losses, defeats number eight and nine of the worst run in the Championship since 1955, their second worst in the entire 145-year history of the grand old tournament. When Cotter took up his post at Murrayfield in the summer of 2014 this was not the expectation. The New Zealander, in a brighter mood than in the build-up to Cardiff two weeks ago, retains the support of his employers. When the Scottish Rugby Union gifted Cotter a new contract ahead of the World Cup there were grumblings off stage – how can you reward a coach whose team have been whitewashed in the Six Nations? Then came the World Cup and perhaps the SRU had it right in securing their man until 2017.

Two games into the latest Six Nations and the whispers are no longer coming from off – now the doubters are standing centre stage. Cotter’s future is being questioned. Another whitewash, which will look horribly likely if Italy are not beaten, would back him and the SRU into a tight corner. As Visser accepted – albeit on the players’ behalf rather than the coach’s – results, as Eddie Jones was all too aware for his first game at Murrayfield, are all that matter.

“We are a team that needs to win to deliver,” says Visser. “That’s our goal and if you don’t [win] then you are short of that goal every time. So of course you then get criticised because [winning] is what we’ve got to do.”

There is proper substance to claims Scotland are improving under Cotter. There is talent here, genuine promise, especially in the backline. They have good players in Stuart Hogg, WP Nel, Mark Bennett, Duncan Taylor and that is in part why the frustration, within the squad and the stands, is mounting. Steam is coming out of all corners of Murrayfield.

“There is frustration but there is also a lot of determination to perform better and get what we all want, which is a win,” says Cotter. “But it goes through a process and it goes through having good set phase, good defence, retaining ball at key times. If you get those bits right you give yourself a chance and that’s what we’re focused on.

“They are a good group of players, good boys. They are not enjoying this at all in the sense that they haven’t won, but they are enjoying being together and working together. We are striving to get what everybody wants.”

And what Cotter needs. He may not have pulled up a bar stool in a Roman last-chance saloon, but he has been dropped off outside. How long before patience with this waiting game runs dry?

“It’s never been about me,” responded Cotter. “I look at it as a challenge, as every game is. I chose to be here and I’m thoroughly enjoying the challenge. So we will just get down to it and get through the 80 minutes on Saturday.”