THREE wins in the RBS Six Nations Championship to finish third. Maybe not the heady injection of grand-slam fever that the Welsh gave themselves last season, but given where Scotland started from — the abject misery and shambolic incompetence of the side this time last year — this is almost as great an achievement. At the start of the season even the optimists were dreaming of snatching only a couple of victories, so beating that really is a case of beyond the nation’s wildest dreams.

And all that without playing particularly well, with this win in Rome a classic case in point. Though the possession statistics were close to even, Scotland dominated territorially but a quarter of their possession was squandered in mistakes, almost all of them handling blunders, and so they struggled to score tries.

Instead, it was left to the immaculate Chris Paterson’s boot to snatch the result as the game drifted into injury time with his 43-yard penalty scraping over the bar to give Scotland their first away win for four years, the last also coming in Rome. It was not, Paterson admitted later, his best strike, and given the shorter flight of the balls used in Italy, he watched as anxiously as any Scot to see if it would reach.

The feat was all the more remarkable for a dead leg in the first half that meant he played the rest of the game in obvious discomfort.

“It was OK as long as I kept moving it,” Paterson said. “When the game is as close as that you are thinking that there could be a kick to win it or lose it. You have to go for it, I don’t think it cleared by much but it did get over. I did not strike it that well, but I knew it was straight so I watched it all the way to see it was long enough.”

It was the perfect culmination to the afternoon for the wing, who had been taken off against Ireland a week ago, but he pounced on the ball, after Mike Blair had broken and Nathan Hines had battered the Italians out of the way to set up clean ruck possession, to steal in for the only Scotland try, which he converted himself.

At that stage, Scotland were behind, Mirco Bergamasco, the Italy centre, having struck in the seventh minute catching a clever chip from Ramiro Pez, his fly half, and crashing over for the early try that Pez converted. Paterson’s score brought things level but Gordon Ross, the Scotland fly half, edged his side ahead with a dropped goal from the last kick of the first half. Pez levelled with a long-range penalty on the hour mark, setting up the Paterson finale.

That he got the chance at all was thanks to a captain’s contribution from Jason White, who had had a quiet game until there were 80 minutes on the clock. That was when he got the chance to line up Andrea Lo Cicero, the Italy prop, for one of his trademark, bonejarring tackles. He hit low and hard, the ball squirted free and the Italians gave away the penalty trying to rescue it.

Frank Hadden, the Scotland coach, reckoned afterwards that his side had deserved the win because of their greater control but it was a close-run thing. Pierre Berbezier, his opposite number, was equally sure that if Sergio Parisse, the flanker, had laid on a try when he was clear through with three men in support, then his side would have won. In the event, he was caught by Mike Blair, one of two try-saving tackles from the replacement scrum half who came on when Chris Cusiter damaged a bicep after ten minutes.

”In some ways I felt this was a more important win than the two home ones,” Hadden said later. “Everybody in rugby is aware of how difficult it is to win away, and Italy have made significant progress. I said to the players in the week that Italy had played better than us in the lead-up to this game. Though some of our attacking play was a bit rusty because we have not really done much in the last two or three weeks, the ambition was always there. There is no doubt our attacking play is still work in progress.”

SCORERS: Italy: Try: Bergamasco (5min). Conversion: Pez. Penalty goal: Pez (59). Scotland: Try: Paterson (12). Conversion: Paterson. Dropped goal: Ross (40+4). Penalty goal: Paterson (80+1).

SCORING SEQUENCE (Italy first): 7-0, 7-7, 7-10 (half-time), 10-10, 10-13.

ITALY: C Stoica (Montpellier; rep: E Galon, Overmach Parma, 24); P Canavosio (Ghial Calvisano), G Canale (Clermont Auvergne), Mirco Bergamasco (Stade Français), L Nitoglia (Ghial Calvisano); R Pez (Perpignan), P Griffen (Ghial Calvisano; rep: S Picone, Benetton Treviso, 13-21); S Perugini (Ghial Calvisano), F Ongaro (Benetton Treviso; rep: C Festuccia, Gran Parma, 64), M Castrogiovanni (Ghial Calvisano; rep: A Lo Cicero, L’Aquila, 56), S Dellape (Agen; rep: C Del Fava, Bourgoin, 68), M Bortolami (Narbonne, captain), S Parisse (Stade Fran çais), M Zaffiri (Ghial Calvisano; rep: A Zanni, Ghial Calvisano, 55), J Sole (Arix Viadana).

SCOTLAND: H Southwell (Edinburgh); C Paterson (Edinburgh), M Di Rollo (Edinburgh), A Henderson (Glasgow), S Lamont (Northampton; rep: S Webster, Edinburgh, 74); G Ross (Leeds Tykes; rep: D Parks, Glasgow, 63), C Cusiter (Borders; rep: M Blair, Edinburgh, 10); G Kerr (Leeds Tykes), S Lawson (Glasgow; rep: D Hall, Edinburgh, 78), B Douglas (Borders; rep: C Smith, Edinburgh, 56), N Hines (Perpignan), S Murray (Edinburgh; rep: A Kellock, Edinburgh, 70), J White (Sale Sharks, captain), A Hogg (Edinburgh), S Taylor (Edinburgh).

Referee: A Rolland (Ireland).

Attendance: 25,000.