The leg break suffered by Rory Lamont means there must be another reshuffle of the Scotland back line for next month's meeting with Ireland just as Scotland look to have moved closer to achieving a genuine attacking edge.

Having gained more yards in possession than any other player in this season's tournament by the time he left the field on Sunday, his loss is a significant one.

However, his departure also meant that by the end of the match Scotland had, for the first time in this campaign, a full back division who were playing in their recognised positions and there was enough in the overall performance to offer some encouragement to suggest they have found a better attacking balance.

Allied to the energy being brought in by the youngsters, with Stuart Hogg, Lee Jones and Duncan Weir all scoring their first points for their country, it all pointed to promising signs on what might otherwise have been a depressing day for the Scottish rugby community as a fifth successive defeat was registered for the first time in eight years.

In the pack, Dave Denton and Richie Gray have also introduced youthful vigour over the past year or so and there is a real sense a new era may be looming.

Mark Bennett's imminent return to action for Clermont Auvergne may well mean the 40-year wait for a teenager to start a Test for Scotland could end in corporation bus mode with two coming along in swift succession, while Tim Visser's attacking prowess will be introduced as soon as he is qualified on residency, midway through the summer tour of Australia and the South Seas.

There is, then, plenty of reason to be optimistic that Lee Jones' assertion that Scotland will now start to score more freely after bagging two tries against France, the first time Scotland have done so in a championship match at Murrayfield against any team other than Italy in the past six years.

However, for two reasons, it would be wrong for anyone to draw too much comfort from those scores by Stuart Hogg and Lee Jones. Many of us pointed out before this match that Scotland would find it easier to attack against France because they are prepared to offer their opponents more space and that proved to be the case.

We were also offered a further reminder that Scotland need a disproportionate amount of possession before finding ways of crossing the opposition try line than their rivals.

Once again Scotland dominated the statistical battle, winning far more ball in the opposition 22 (37 phases to France's 14), completing far more passes (212 to 137), making twice as many line breaks (six to three) and having to make far fewer tackles (99 to 142) to identify but a few.

Yet it was France who found a way to win by capitalising on what were perhaps the only two clearcut chances they created, before ratcheting up the power in the closing stages to deny Scotland the chance to register a match-winning third try.

As they prepare to head to Ireland, the Scots must prepare for another very different kind of examination against Ireland's choke tackle defence which can allow teams to gain ground relatively easily, but challenges their capacity to keep hold of the ball by preventing them from getting to ground.

Rory Lamont's absence is a major loss, then, but Scotland have plenty of power runners who should be able to test Ireland in much the way Wales did when they recorded a third successive win over their Celtic rivals on the championship's opening weekend.

In Denton, Gray and captain Ross Ford they have forwards whose running power will trouble any team and that back-line balance looked much improved.

That being the case, the bigger worry for Scotland's management in the shorter term may be the knee injury suffered by Morrison, who was back on form at centre and whose physical presence means that Sean Lamont can be deployed more usefully further out.

While Joe Ansbro remains Andy Robinson's first-choice outside centre, the head coach has said the same of Chris Cusiter at scrum-half and yet Mike Blair demonstrated, before he, too, had to leave the field injured after half an hour of Sunday's game, why he may be better suited to playing alongside Greig Laidlaw.

Similarly, then, while Nick De Luca failed to impress when starting Scotland's opening two championship matches, he took his latest chance to impress when he came off the bench with a performance which reflected the form he has been showing for Edninburgh this season, not least in the build-up to Jones' try.

Perhaps most exciting of all for the longer term, however, is that having taken what many of us thought was the strongest ever Scotland World Cup squad to New Zealand earlier this season, in terms of depth, so many of those who are shining in this championship did not even make that trip.

It may be unlikely, but it is actually conceivable that Scotland could, by this time next year or even sooner, field an entire back line of players who did not go on that World Cup tour eg (9-15): Greig Laidlaw, Duncan Weir, Tim Visser, Matt Scott, Mark Bennett, Lee Jones and Stuart Hogg.

More immediately, either the half-back combination which started Sunday's game – Blair and Laidlaw – or that which finished it – Cusiter and Weir – will offer a sound basis on which to build for next week and the coaches will hope that the rest of the back line which finished the game with Morrison and De Luca in the centre, Jones and the older Lamont on the wings and Hogg at full-back can further reward the efforts of a pack of forwards that is deserving of much better.