You don't need a sat-nav for the try-line

In short, you've flogged your guts out yet you still have this horrid feeling of dissatisfaction and frustration knowing your effort has not been good enough.

Johnnie Beattie - one of our better performers in the 18-9 defeat to France - looked as if he'd gone 10 rounds with a rhino and lost. By no means an exaggerated comparison given he was facing Imanol Harinordoquy.

More broken, red-eyed bodies shuffled in with each looking as if they were the subject matter for Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb".

Many a coach will say to their team before kick-off: "Don't leave that pitch knowing you could have done more." While Scotland did put in the effort, far too many "what if" questions remained such as: "Why didn't we bag at least a couple of tries?"

Ah yes.... tries... remember them? Tend to win matches and we used to score a fair few when I was younger.... OK when I was much younger.

Six tries in the last 12 months tells its own sorry story and although the kicks of Chris Paterson enable us to register points on the board, we do need a try or two to ensure they mean something at the end.

It wasn't that we didn't have any opportunities to score them - most notably, Chris Cusiter dropping Beattie's offload in front of the posts. Sure there are many reasonable excuses to explain why this move didn't come of but you get the feeling that had that opportunity occurred at the other end, France would have crossed over.

Last week's article caused a bit of a stir with my casting a critical eye over the fly-half position. I don't usually say I told you so when I am sadly proven to be right but given the two less than complimentary emails from Edinburgh fans.... I told you so!

Maybe I've been spoiled that in my lifetime I've been lucky enough to see John Rutherford, Craig Chalmers and Gregor Townsend all strut their stuff in the number 10 shirt.

However, if Phil Godman has not cracked the knack of kicking from hand at this stage of his career, then it is time to look elsewhere and start to see if we can possibly accelerate the development of the likes of Ruaridh Jackson while Dan Parks fills the slot until his Glasgow understudy is ready.

Given the Edinburgh was not in the best of form for his club, it did seem a strange choice and so it proved as French pressure ensured he had a poor game.

His opposite, Francois Trinh-Duc is certainly not of the Sella/Lescaboura/Lamaison mould but he did a competent job at number 10 and ensured his backs were regularly involved in an offensive way - unlike our own who spent most of the game focussing on defence instead of what they are noted for.

Sean Lamont's breaks deserved some reward and maybe he would have got it had he been given more opportunity to venture forth into the French half.

Parks is back in the team as a result of Godman's poor show but now he has another chance on the international scene, he must take it otherwise all hope will indeed lie in the young Jackson who is rapidly becoming Scottish rugby's Luke Skywalker at this rate with him being cast as the great young hope.

As for the scrum, while we didn't lose one against the French, the pressure put on by Les Bleus ensured that whatever ball we did get from them, quality was not a word being attached to it.

Compared to France, their scrum held firm and guaranteed their backs would have quality ball in which to attack us with.

Euan Murray's return will hopefully resolve that issue as Wales - no doubt hurting from their English loss - will be keen to show a packed Cardiff crowd that rumours of them being past it are greatly exaggerated.

While they are certainly not over the hill - not yet - they do seem to have lost their way and are now prone to some stupid mistakes.

Alun Wyn-Jones' brainless act effectively sealed their defeat to England but their line-out was shocking and something that can be exploited by the Scots.

However, we can talk about the possible chinks in Wales' armour as much as we like but the fact still remains, while they still have the firepower in their back division to hurt any team in the world, if their pack is having a bad day, Scotland must be firing on all cylinders.

Score a try or two and a win in Cardiff is definitely on. If we don't, then the Murrayfield kitchen inventory might have to make provision for another wooden spoon.