Little was learned at Murrayfield on Saturday as Scotland won the first of their autumn Tests by the sort of margin to be expected against a still emerging nation.

Had Greig Laidlaw not had a rare off-day with the boot, missing half his attempts on goal, they would have come even closer to passing the half-century mark as the world champion All Blacks did against the same opponents a week earlier.

Six tries represented a respectable return, even if, as was noted by Scott Wisemantel - the caretaker Japan coach, deputising for the infirm Eddie Jones - half of them were scored against 14 men during stages where the visitors had players in the sin bin.

Scott Johnson, Scotland's longer term stand-in manager, rightly criticised the soft nature of the scores his team conceded and anyone seeking to be hyper-critical might register some alarm at how Japan twice got within a point of their hosts during the second half. But although the reality is that there was never the slightest doubt Scotland would win comfortably, Johnson admitted to mixed feelings about the nature of the response to the Japanese tries. Naturally he was pleased that both were cancelled out instantly, but why, he reasonably wondered, should his men first need such kicks up the backside.

What was really not good enough - since everyone is in the same boat at this time of year - was the claim that the performance could be partly attributed to this being the first Test of the season. From professionals, these excuses are tiresome.

Also, those who managed to persuade more than 32,000 people to attend this encounter probably deserve credit, rather than to be questioned over why Scotland were playing a Test in a more than half empty stadium. Rarely, though, can so many gathered together at a single sports venue have generated so little noise when their team was winning.

Indeed, from a personal perspective, the best aspect of the opening half hour was that it offered the chance for a grand catch up with the BBC Alba team of Hugh Dan MacLennan and Craig Coughlan, as well as former Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors press officer Mark Palmer, a parlance uninterrupted by much distraction from the pitch. Other, that is, than the issue of the state of the playing surface itself.

As we teased Hugh Dan about the potential threat to his commentary job from Alan Titchmarsh, Tommy Seymour, on his two-try home debut, might have become the first Scotland winger to find his route to the try line obscured by half a dozen gardeners. With that in mind Hugh Dan pointed out what he suggested might be the most unfortunate hoarding of the day: 'Supporting Grassroots Rugby', promoting, no less, the charity founded in memory of his former colleague Bill McLaren.

Since the late great 'Voice of Rugby' might not have approved of our lack of focus on the game I will not reveal who mused, ahead of Seymour's opening touchdown, that the players might have been trying to help out their latest autumnal sponsors by getting a newspaper to use the headline: "Wake me up before you Viagogo."

Even at the dullest points, though, the big talking point kept us going both during that first half and at the post-match press conference.

Watching what has always been regarded as one of the world's great pitches cut up every time someone is pushed off it was a sad sight, and brought to mind that the old nickname for Twickenham was Billy Williams' cabbage patch, after the venue's market garden roots.

With a layer of garlic bizarrely having been applied to rid it of parasites, if it gets dug up as badly as it might in the coming fortnight the next great SRU revenue generator to counter the cost of re-laying might be to add salt and pepper and create a vast batch of vegetable soup.

On the other hand, it might be a good idea to keep the garlic and pitch-forks handy, with rather scarier monsters - the Springboks - due to visit next weekend.