Townsend settles in at No 10 to lift the blues

The day Budge Pountney decided to walk out on Scotland there was a VIP visitor to the squad's training session on the back pitches at Murrayfield.

Iain Duncan Smith ventured to suggest that Ian McGeechan's team, and his own parliamentary squad, would "peak at just the right moment" perhaps, in the case of the True Blues of Murrayfield at least, they have simply been implementing a cunning plan of the Baldrick variety. Having lulled their Six Nations rivals into the falsest sense of security, McGeechan's men emerged from their trough, hitting the upward curve of a vital victory if not exactly approaching the dizzying heights.

Duncan Smith, as it happened, was back north of the border last week, telling delegates at the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party Conference that "hope" was the theme for the immediate and mid-term future. For McGeechan's conservatives, trialist and near-tyrannosaurus against Ireland and France, mere "relief" in the present was good enough at the final whistle yesterday. There would be no whitewashing for them this season. Instead, it is Wales who have the wooden spoon within their grasp. On the form they showed yesterday they would most likely drop it.

Like the man in charge of the blue team at Westminster, McGeechan has been facing something of a leadership crisis. Even though he is due to move upstairs after the World Cup to replace Jim Telfer as the Scottish Rugby Union's Director of Rugby (as opposed to their director of tiddlywinks), questions have been asked about his record. In his second spell in charge presumably, he had won just five of 17 matches in the Six Nations' Championship up to yesterday.

It has been difficult not to feel sympathy for his plight, given the fact that he inherited a squad shorn of such retired gems as Alan Tait and Gary Armstrong. McGeechan has been shuffling a deck with no aces up his sleeve, let alone in his hand.

There was a time when Gregor Townsend was regarded as a potential trump card but with his propensity for slithering down as many blind alleys as pouring through opposition breaches he has been as much of a joker. Yesterday McGeechan played him at No 10 and, after starting the season as third choice in his favoured position, the 29-year-old was back to something like his best. With a crisper, cleaner service from a pack strengthened by the introduction of Jason White, Townsend had Scotland ticking along nicely from the start, pinning back the Welsh with his tactical kicking and keeping them on the back foot before the interval with his quick-thinking offensive play.

It was his torpedo kick into the right corner that prompted the first breakthrough, and his long floated pass that set up the second score for Simon Taylor. In the light of the late flutter, though, it was the perfect place-kicking of Chris Paterson that proved to be most crucial. The Edinburgh wing landed six out of six and scored the third Scottish try too, finishing with a personal tally of 20 points.

"It was great to kick the points from the pressure we applied," McGeechan said. "I know how Clive Woodward feels now." Next up for the Scots just happens to be Woodward's All Whites – Jonny Wilkinson's left boot, fortress Twickenham and all. They haven't won there since 1983.