Allan Massie: Early exit hard to swallow at World Cup but the bottle may yet be half full

We also know that if in both matches a restart had been safely gathered instead of being lost, victory would have been ours. Winning or losing a close match comes down to such single moments.

So there is a sense in which this is the most bitter of all our World Cup failures. In 2003, we were thrashed – 51-9 – by France in a pool game, and nearly beaten by Fiji. Four years later we were very lucky to get out of the pool and wouldn’t have done so if Italy had kicked a last-minute penalty. This time we had a chance and blew it. So the disappointment is sharp and depression is natural.

Yet any half-empty bottle is also half-full. We lost on Saturday, but the disappointment shouldn’t obscure the fact that this was our best World Cup performance since we came so close to beating France in South Africa in 1995. It was the first time since then that we nearly beat a team that was expected to beat us. “Nearly”, of course, is not good enough, and nobody will be more aware of this than the players. They will be all the more conscious of the opportunity lost if England go on to the final – as well they may, despite all their off-field problems.

Much has been made of our failure to score tries. Tom English yesterday highlighted missed opportunities against Argentina and England. They were certainly there. If only Rory Lawson had passed left instead of going right… if only Nick De Luca had put his foot to the wet slippery ball, as Jim Renwick would surely have done, instead of trying to pick it up… and so on.

Nevertheless, the failure to score tries should be put into perspective. The matches against Georgia, Argentina and England were all played in vilely wet and windy conditions. In contrast England played Argentina in perfect conditions for running rugby under the roof in Dunedin; yet the try they scored was the only one of the match.

The England-Argentina-Scotland matches have not exactly been a try fest: three games, three tries. Our defeat on Saturday would have been even more depressing if England had scored, say, three tries and won 22-18, with all our points coming from penalties and drop-goals. Instead, they never looked like scoring a try until they did so, while for most of the game we attacked with far more imagination and energy.

The most important decision on Saturday was made off the field in the 56th minute, when Martin Johnson took off the ineffective Courtney Lawes and replaced him with Tom Palmer. Until then we had controlled the line-outs by capturing or disrupting English throws.

Palmer offered England a security on their own ball which they had lacked, and immediately they were able to get their driving maul going. The balance of the game shifted. If Johnson hadn’t made that substitution, England would probably have lost.

We still had chances. Dan Parks has been criticised for hoisting that Garryowen under the English posts. It was a gamble doubtless but one worth taking. Anything can happen with a Garryowen, especially on such a vile evening. A bounce or deflection into a pair of Scottish hands and you have a seven-point score, or an English knock-on and you have a scrum in front of the posts. As it happened England scrambled the ball clear. So the gamble didn’t come off. But Parks, who had one of his best games for Scotland, was right to try it.

In disappointment one dwells on what went wrong. So there will be a stock-taking. Nothing that comes out of it can alter fundamental problems which have nothing to do with the present coaching staff. Chief of these, of course, is the continued weakness of the professional game here (though it was good to see Glasgow beating Cardiff Blues and Edinburgh beating Munster last weekend). But then we should look ahead, and in the immediate future there is more light than darkness.

First Andy Robinson has put together a team – indeed a squad – that is getting hard to beat. It is still comparatively young, especially up-front, and its older members, Chris Paterson and Dan Parks, have played in New Zealand in a way which suggests that they are not yet ready to surrender their place lightly. Paterson had an outstanding game against England, with the highlight one beautifully-timed pass which put Joe Ansbro in space, only a splendid cover-tackle by young Tuilaigi saving England.

Then there is more competition for a place in the starting XV than for a long time. This makes selection more difficult, of course, as we have seen over the last weeks with uncertainty about the best choice at scrum-half, lock, and in the back-row especially. But such competition must be a good thing, because it forces players to raise their standard. So, for example, against England Mike Blair was back to the form which saw him on the short-list for “world player of the year” a couple of seasons ago, and gave Ben Youngs a miserable time. Then you have John Barclay and Ross Rennie pushing each other, and, while we surely missed the injured Kelly Brown on Saturday, his absence gave Richie Vernon the chance to take another step in his development; for most of the match he looked good. Ross Ford and Allan Jacobsen have had good World Cups too, Ford especially, while I lost count of the number of crushing tackles Alastair Strokosch made. Yet he can‘t think his place secure, especially if Johnnie Beattie regains his 2010 form.

It’s sad that we shall be only interested spectators from now on. But the World Cup itself will soon be behind us, and then it won’t be long before we are launched on another Six Nations campaign, one to which we can look forward with some confidence. Once we have recovered from the disappointment of the last two weekends, we may look at the bottle and conclude that it is really half full and indeed a bit more than half.