Paterson shines through grey day

Appropriately for two teams whose peak of ambition extended to a spat over fourth place, neither hit the heights in a wooden conclusion deprived of wooden spoon frisson by Wales's defeat in Paris. Chris Paterson's points-gathering ability continued to be a shining light for Scotland in an otherwise mostly gloomy championship, and Italy, to be blunt, were delighted simply not to have finished last.

Scotland put to rights their chronic lack of tries in the championship, doubling their total to six before the first half was out, but only Paterson, with a delightful chip-and-chase, was able to breach the Italian line in the second . A large measure of airy Azzurri tackling was left unpunished and Scotland's coach, Ian McGeechan, admitted: "We probably could have had 20 points more by half-time." It was, for the most part, knockabout action, with the ambience of an end-of-season sevens tournament to match.

Murrayfield was 20,000 short of capacity, and echoed to a mixture of throaty chants of "Italia, Italia" and the shrill encouragement of hundreds of schoolchildren willing on the men in change white.

It was an undistinguished way for McGeechan and his long-time partner-in-crime, Jim Telfer, to bid farewell to a championship that has seen them taste Grand Slam success in almost four decades as players and coaches.

McGeechan steps into the retiring Telfer's shoes as director of rugby after the World Cup, and you could almost hear the latter's sergeant-majorish growl during a passage of play around the half-hour which summed up Scotland's problems. Leading 16-15, they won a line-out off the top through Scott Murray's lissom leap, with the other second row, Nathan Hines, hurrying the ball on, only for slow recycling and a fumble to lead to an Italian penalty. Then, after Cristian Bezzi was spoken to by referee Dave McHugh for lashing out at Simon Taylor, Scotland again secured perfect line-out ball and drove a maul straight out of the Telfer textbook, but stuttered into a turnover when the outside backs were called on. Their laboured distribution suggested an endemic lack of confidence.

Still, there were tries aplenty for the kids to cheer. Mirco Bergamasco, Italy's thrusting 20-year-old full-back, got his third in successive matches after three minutes, after Italy broke off the blind side of a wheeling scrum then crabbed across field with a dummy run from Andrea Masi and Paolo Vaccari's final pass. Vaccari had led his side on to mark his 64th and final cap, but appeared none too keen to mark the occasion with anything so ugly as a tackle.

Not that he was alone. After Paterson had exchanged a penalty goal with Ramiro Pez and Glenn Metcalfe raised the pulse rate with a weaving run, Scotland levelled at 8-8 – Jason White bundled through Pez from Bryan Redpath's tapped free-kick.

There were more impressions of Italian traffic policemen to come. When Kenny Logan darted up the middle, Scotland worked the open side and Gregor Townsend's long cut-out pass sent James McLaren in on the left.

Though Paterson missed both conversions, so ruining a sequence of 11 successful kicks in three matches, he did pot a penalty after 23 minutes, and Scotland led 16-8.

Italy's back row were not as watchable as in previous outings, but neither was there the danger of the initial cave-ins that had undone them against England and France. After 26 minutes Pez ghosted past three forwards with a neat show-and-go, and converted.

What with Italy here, and Iceland's footballers over in Glasgow, the Scots of both codes were under pressure to let the I's have it, but a try by Logan three minutes before half-time eased home jitters.

Metcalfe dummied past Pez, Italy conceded a ruck penalty, and Logan, tapping to himself, easily brushed off a couple of blue jerseys.

Paterson's conversion made it 23-15, but the second half, as inWales's loss here three weeks ago, failed to ignite the same spark as the first.

Pez put over a penalty in the 51st minute, then Italy were again outflanked when Taylor picked up at a scrum, held Troncon at bay on the short side and fed Paterson for a beautifully executed run-in – the wing's sixth try in 10 internationals, on his way to 18 more points in Scotland's cause. He also converted, but Italy came back for more.

Pez, expertly guiding his three-quarters to confirm his able succession to Diego Dominguez, fed the replacement Gert Peens, who was supported by another, Scott Palmer, for the visitors' third try. It took a solid tackle by Metcalfe on Bergamasco to thwart an equaliser at the corner, and Paterson signed off with a penalty from 45 metres.

Afterwards Logan and captain Redpath joined their coaches in the Six Nations departure lounge. But with all roads leading to the World Cup, any reasonable hopes of Scotland and Italy doing the business look doomed to economy class.

Scotland 33 Italy 25

Tries: White, McLaren, Logan; Tries: Bergamasco, Pez, Paterson Palmer
Cons: Paterson 2; Cons: Pez 2
Pens: Paterson 3; Pens: Pez 2

Half-time: 23-15 Attendance: 45,739

Scotland: G Metcalfe (Glasgow); C Paterson (Edinburgh), J McLaren (Bordeaux-Begles), A Craig (Orrell), K Logan (Wasps); G Townsend (Borders), B Redpath (Sale, capt); T Smith (Northampton), G Bulloch (Glasgow), B Douglas (Borders), S Murray (Edinburgh), N Hines (Edinburgh), J White (Glasgow), S Taylor (Edinburgh), A Mower (Newcastle). Replacements: R Beattie (Bristol) for White, 42; S Grimes (Newcastle) for Murray, 59; R Russell (Saracens) for Bulloch, 76.

Italy: M Bergamasco (Padova); P Vaccari (Calvisano), A Masi (L'Aquila), G Raineri (Calvisano), D Dallan (Treviso); R Pez (Rotherham), A Troncon (Treviso, capt); A Lo Cicero (Lazio), C Festuccia (Gran Parma), R Martinez (Treviso), C Bezzi (Viadana), M Giacheri (Rotherham), A De Rossi (Calvisano), A Persico (Viadana), M Phillips (Viadana). Replacements: G Peens (Overmach Parma) for Vaccari, h-t; L Castrogiovanni (Calvisano) for Martinez, 53; S Palmer (Treviso) for Phillips, 57-70; Palmer for De Rossi, 70; S Dellape (Treviso) for Giacheri, 76.

Referee: D McHugh (Ireland).