THAT is a game that shows perfectly why Gregor Townsend was prepared to turn down big-money offers to coach abroad and take over Scotland. It has been obvious for some time that this is a squad that has something about it, who would not want to take them to the next level?

This was a special performance from a team that should be going places with the capacity to frighten any side in world rugby. It is a squad with real ambition, not just in the way that they approach and play the game but also in the way that they think about where they can get to.

The vital thing now is that they take the confidence that this result, and the performances over the last two weeks must have created, into the Six Nations. The have proved to themselves that when they let themselves play, they can challenge any team in the world and beat most of them.

The problem is that they all head their different ways for the next two months and do not get together again until they gather back in camp at the end of January. They have to remember how they are feeling at the moment and bring that spirit and that confidence with them when they arrive at that camp.

They then have to take than with them to Cardiff when they open the Six Nations at a place where they have points to prove but need have no hang-ups after a performance like this.

After all, who would have thought that they would score 50 points against Australia? I know there was a red card that maybe contributed to that but I firmly believe that they would have won – and probably would have won reasonably comfortably – without it.

They were already looking superior in the way they were moving the ball around the backs and the way they were reacting to turnovers and though they had conceded a couple of scores, I was always confident that they would put that behind them and go on to win.

The other reason for approaching the Six Nations with a fair amount of confidence is that the whole month has revealed a strength in depth that few would have predicted. When the call came, player after player stood up to be counted and all of a sudden the coaches have options they probably did not realise they had until this series.

It is not just the obvious ones, like Byron McGuigan getting a late, late call to come off the bench and start the game but to go on to win the man-of-the-match award after scoring two tries – look at the likes of the front-row guys who have come good.

Stuart McInally, for example. A few weeks ago, he would probably have been third or fourth choice for the hooker slot in the team, yet he fitted in like a veteran. His ball carrying and defence were rock solid, as you would have expected of a guy who has spent most of his career in the back row, but his set-piece work has been immense. You don't go through a whole series hardly losing a line out if your hooker cannot throw.

Jamie Bhatti is another, a guy who was playing club rugby for Melrose this time last year but came into the team, played solidly in the first two games and then had the determination and ability to make a 40-metre sprint through the middle of the Australian defence and then lay the ball back for his players in support. You don't get much better than that.

Add in that the likes of Darryl Marfo have more than held their own, that the team even had the capacity to shrug off the loss of a player like Stuart Hogg and still play that brand of attacking rugby and the only question is whether they are capable of picking up in two months where they left off yesterday.

Once reason for thinking they might is that I am also hugely heartened by John Barclay's captaincy. He is a player who leads from the front but also showed in this game that he is always thinking about it as well. When Huw Jones scored his try, it was Barclay who identified that there was space to attack out wide and told Finn Russell to take the tap penalty and get the ball there – sheer class.

Not that Russell needs a huge amount of help. He was up to all his tricks, that little drop out that got the ball back and gave them a chance to attack from deep. He is so good at identifying where the space is and getting the ball there, playing intelligent heads-up rugby that makes life difficult for any level of opposition.

Everything about this month suggests there is a real mental fortitude about this team. Things have not always gone their way, they have had injuries to contend with – this week losing Hogg at the last minute and Alex Dunbar on Friday – they had their struggles against Samoa and were ultimately disappointed with the result against New Zealand but they never stopped trying to play bright, attacking rugby.

The rewards came in that result but it was all the culmination of a performance level that has been steadily growing in power, ambition and intensity. That put the team in a good place, just what an ambitious coach looks for.