Rampant Scotland destroy Italy

The home side controlled the match brilliantly throughout, with Tim Visser's first half try putting them in the driving seat.

And though Italy battled to the end, the Scots ran rampant every time an opportunity opened up for them with Matt Scott, Stuart Hogg and Sean Lamont all running in tries in the second half.

Italy scored a late consolation effort that was scant reward for their efforts, but the afternoon belonged to Scotland who showed skill, speed, discipline and above all else outstanding defensive rugby to get their Six Nations campaign back on track.

Scotland began the match clearly determined to make amends for their defeat at Twickenham last week, throwing everything at the visitors from the start.

And within two minutes Visser almost managed a try as Greig Laidlaw's kick was one good bounce away from putting him in to score.

Italy tried to hit back almost straight away as the match began at an almost rugby sevens pace, and the visitors would have taken the lead their pressure deserved but Luciano Orquera missed a penalty after Jim Hamilton had lost his head and charged offside.

Yet it was a rare error from the Scots, and one of just two chances they allowed their guests in a superbly disciplined opening half performance.

The Scots controlled the play and kept the ball well, deservedly taking the lead with a pair of penalties from Laidlaw, while Italy's handling errors continually derailed their efforts to get into the match.

One of those errors very nearly gifted Scotland a try, as Giovanbattista Venditti completely missed the ball while trying to hack it upfield. Ryan Grant picked it up and released centre Matt Scott, whose run to the corner was stopped only by a top drawer tackle by Italy scrum-half Tobias Botes to put his man into touch.

Scotland's disappointment lasted just two minutes as they regained the ball, with Ruaridh Jackson drawing two men with a jinking run before offloading to Visser, who cut inside his marker to score the opening try.

Laidlaw added the extra points and Scotland seemed to be running away with it, though they gave away three points just before half-time, Hamilton slowing down the ball needlessly while 35m out and almost dead in front to give Orquera the opportunity to get Italy off the mark.

But while the shot at goal gave the visitors a lifeline heading into the second period, Scotland effectively severed it within 10 minutes of the restart. An innocuous line-out just inside the Italy half on 42 minutes was turned into a devastating attack by Sean Maitland, coming inside from the wing and jinking between two Italian players to cut open the defence before offloading to Scott to run in for a try.

And just five minutes later bad became worse for Italy: the visitors looked certain to get back into the match as a magnificent run by Andrea Masi cut a huge hole in the Scotland defence.

But though Masi offloaded to Orquera, the fly-half's final pass to the unmarked Tommaso Benvenuti was intercepted by Hogg, who cut inside brilliantly to avoid Botes and Masi before running the length of the pitch to score another try.

With Laidlaw remaining flawless with his kicking, the score was suddenly 27-3 and the result was effectively beyond doubt. Knowing that Italy had to go for tries the home side began to give away penalties repeatedly whenever they were under threat, even in their own 22m, rightly believing that their defence would hold firm if needed, and knowing that they would take their own chances ruthlessly.

The win soon turned into a rout: Scott was unlucky to have a try disallowed as a final pass from Maitland was ruled forwards, but the hosts touched down for a fourth time with 10 minutes left as Lamont pounced on an appalling handling error at the back of an Italian ruck to run in under the posts.

Italy refused to throw in the towel and Sergio Parisse set up Alessandro Zanni for a consolation effort five minutes from time with a superb disguised pass back inside, but it will have done little to soothe Italy's pain as last week's ecstasy in Rome turned to agony in Edinburgh.