SCOTLAND’s win over Italy at the weekend may only have been a friendly, located in the limbo between last season and next, and achieved by one understrength team against another. Yet even keeping those caveats in mind, the 34-13 victory in Singapore was a very positive omen for what is to come in the Gregor Townsend era.

As far as the action on the field went, the match will be remembered as the one in which Ross Ford scored two tries. In terms of the history of Scottish rugby, it will go down as the match that marked the start of Townsend’s time in charge of the national team. Of deeper significance than either of those facts, however, is the style and ambition with which the team played, and what it should lead us to expect from the new head coach over the next couple of years.

There will be no radical change from the way in which Vern Cotter got Scotland playing. The former head coach was clearly making improvements, and the style he introduced was designed to be one with which the squad were comfortable.

But there will, it seems, be an enhanced emphasis on the responsibility of the players to attempt something if they think it is on. An emphasis, that is, on the need to be adventurous if you are going to win at the highest level. That emphasis will not be at the expense of common sense or of solid defence - qualities that will be highlighted on Saturday, when the Wallabies will be a far greater threat than the Italians. But, as he looks ahead two years to the next Rugby World Cup, Townsend knows that if Scotland are to do more than go out n the quarter-final as usual they will have to develop an instinctive understanding of when to play a high-risk game.

There is a very fine balance, of course, between recklessness and legitimate adventure, and it will be incumbent on key playmakers - Finn Russell above all - to cultivate their intuitive grasp of that balance. In that sense, the role of the stand-off is akin to a gymnast on the beam: precariously perched on a strip of wood just four inches wide, he knows if he attempts something spectacular he will either be hailed as a hero or fall flat on his face.

In fact, let’s give Townsend’s approach a name: The Russell Equilibrium. That might make it sound like a Hollywood thriller in which Matt Damon runs around all over the shop, but at least it is a title which stresses the centrality of the Glasgow Warriors fly-half to the head coach’s plans.

As a former No 10 himself, of course, Townsend is well aware of the stresses of the position and is thus a vital influence on Russell. Assistant coach Mike Blair, too, although he was a scrum-half, also has a valuable role to play because of his intelligence and the speed with which he can apply it to specific situations.

Needless to say, it’s not just about Russell, but some of the deft touches with both hands and feet that he showed against Italy again demonstrated how important the 24-year-old will be to Scotland over the next few season. They also suggested that we are in for some highly entertaining times, if occasionally nerve-wracking ones too, with Townsend at the helm.

And another thing . . . .

The facial injury which has ended Stuart Hogg’s British & Irish Lions tour is not only desperately bad luck for the Glasgow Warriors full-back himself, it has also lessened the chances of a Scot’s actually starting a Lions Test for the first time since Tom Smith way back in 2001.

Hogg would have had a good fighting chance of claiming the No 15 jersey for at least one of the three Tests against New Zealand - a better chance, we would have to admit, than the two Scots who remain in the squad, Tommy Seymour and Greig Laidlaw. Seymour gave further proof of his predatory instincts yesterday with an interception try in the tourists’ defeat by the Highlanders, but without his club and national playing partner, the Warriors winger may well find it harder to force his way into the back three. Laidlaw, meanwhile, was not an original choice for the squad, so has some ground to make up before coming into contention.

Injuries abound at the highest level of the game these days, of course, and it is all too feasible that by the third Test the Lions party will contain so many walking wounded that head coach Warren Gatland will have to turn to those who were far from his original plans. That route into the team could well offer the best hope for Seymour or Laidlaw to end our wait of 16 years.

The only consolation for Hogg, meanwhile, is that his enforced rest over the next month or two may just stand him in good stead when it comes to next season. In any case, let’s hope that he has an extra spring in his sidestep when he belatedly gets the chance to take on the All Blacks at Murrayfield in November.