Few teams wear the mantle of favourites worse than Scotland. Give them concrete grounds for optimism and they will find a way to self-destruct. They did it again at the weekend, collapsing after a bright start to hand Australia a seasonending boost to morale.

They did the same thing two years ago when they crumbled in front of a weakened South Africa side, and it remains true that many of the worst recent Scotland performances have come when their confidence was high. They missed tackles and they failed to hang on to the ball when they were tackled. The scrum was rarely stable and they were twice turned and driven to hand the ball back to Australia. After an initial splash of adventure, it was back to one-pass rugby and bulldozer tactics that barely stretched the Wallaby defence.

Despite the margin of defeat — the highest points total for Australia at Murrayfield, second only to the 45 the Scots conceded in Sydney in 1998, and only the third time the Wallabies have managed five tries at Murrayfield — Chris Paterson, the captain, was determined to look on the bright side afterwards.

“It shows where we have got to go if we seriously want to compete at the World Cup,” he said. “We know where we are. We know what we have to get right in order to get better.

One bad result against a quality side doesn’t undo all the hard work and effort we’ve shown in the last 18 months. We didn’t really get our attacking game functioning and that’s partly because we were playing against a team who starve you of ball.”

That was certainly a huge factor in the game, with the Scotland back row being comprehensively outplayed in the loose by their Australian opponents, who assured their team of quick possession and usually got there quickly enough to slow the Scots ball. The strength in depth in that department may not be as deep as people thought.

Losing Nathan Hines certainly did not help either, particularly since Simon Taylor is short of match fitness and Jason White and Allister Hogg are both injured, making Hines a key figure in the pre-match planning in generating the essential brute force in the forwards. Bringing in Alastair Kellock, the Glasgow captain, helped the lineout but at a cost in ruck, maul and scrum.

It would, however, gloss over the problems revealed in Scottish skills and tactical awareness, and downgrade Australia’s performance, to suggest that the Hines case was the cause of Scotland’s heavy defeat. After all, they started brightly, spreading the ball to the wings and Simon Webster skipped over for an early try. With Paterson kicking the conversion and a penalty, they were 10-0 up in even time.

Then they started to gift Australia the ball. A short drop out that went straight to a Wallaby; two scrums that were spun and driven to hand over possession; needless penalties when support went missing; allowing the ball to be knocked clear in tackles; poor kicks straight to the waiting Wallabies — just a few examples of how Scotland handed over possession. Scottish confidence visibly waned as Australia’s waxed.

Stirling Mortlock, who finished with 19 points from a perfect goalkicking afternoon, started the fightback with a penalty before Stephen Larkham rode Marcus di Rollo’s tackle to reach the line. The scores were level but the momentum was firmly with Australia.

Two more Mortlock penalties gave his side the edge at the break, and shortly after they had the game won with two tries by Mark Gerrard, the wing. Chris Latham, the outstanding full back, created the first with a break through the middle, Mortlock and Larkham did the work for the second.

Scotland gave themselves some hope when Sean Lamont grabbed a try after Lote Tuqiri slipped going for a Dan Parks cross kick, and they should have been even closer when a sustained period of pressure left them with six-to-two overlap, only for Di Rollo to drop the ball. Instead it was Australia who wrapped things up with Stephen Moore, the hooker making his first international start, grabbing their fourth try and Latham getting the fifth as Scotland started to miss simple tackles.

SCORERS: Scotland: Tries: Webster (7min), Lamont (55). Conversion: Paterson. Penalty goal: Paterson (3). Australia: Tries: Larkham (18), Gerrard (45, 52), Moore (78), Latham (80+6). Conversions: Mortlock 5. Penalty goals: Mortlock 3 (12, 26, 34). SCORING SEQUENCE: (Scotland first) 3-0, 10-0, 10-3, 10-10, 10-13, 10-16 (half-time), 10-23, 10-30, 15-30, 15-37, 15-44.

SCOTLAND: C Paterson (Edinburgh); S Lamont (Northampton), M Di Rollo (Edinburgh, rep: P Godman, Edinburgh, 48-58), A Henderson (Glasgow), S Webster (Edinburgh, rep: H Southwell, Edinburgh, 8); D Parks (Glasgow, rep: P Godman, Edinburgh, 58), M Blair (Edinburgh, rep: R Lawson, Gloucester, 76); G Kerr (Borders, rep: A Jacobsen, Edinburgh, 49, sin-bin: 80+5-end), D Hall (Edinburgh, rep: R Ford, Borders, 58), E Murray (Glasgow, rep: Kerr, 80+5), A Kellock (Glasgow), S Murray (Edinburgh, rep: J Hamilton, Leicester,73), S Taylor (Edinburgh), K Brown (Borders, rep: A Strokosch, Edinburgh, 73), D Callam (Edinburgh).

AUSTRALIA: C Latham (Waratahs); M Gerrard (Brumbies), S Mortlock Brumbies), S Staniforth (Force, rep: M Rogers, Waratahs, 80+2), L Tuqiri (Waratahs); S Larkham (Brumbies), M Giteau (Force, rep: J Valentine, Waratahs, 80+2), B Robinson (Waratahs, rep: A Baxter, Waratahs, 80+2), S Moore (Reds, rep: T Polota-Nau, Waratahs, 79), G Shepherdson (Brumbies), N Sharpe (Force), A Campbell (Brumbies, sin-bin: 71-80+2), R Elsom (Waratahs, rep: M Chisholm, Brumbies, 74), G Smith (Brumbies, rep: P Waugh, Waratahs, 62), D Lyons (Wartahs, rep: W Palu, Waratahs, 62).

Referee: D Courtney (IRFU).
Attendance: 64,120