THE claim is that luck evens out in the long run; the question is whether you can wait long enough for the breaks to go your way.

So it was that, after all the problems of the last year, things again went the way of this Scotland squad for the third time in as many games.

As coach Andy Robinson observed, if the same breaks had gone their way during the RBS 6 Nations, they could easily have won at least two of their first three games and everything from then on would have been so different. "Does that make me a better or worse coach when it comes down to things that small?" he asked. The answer is in the question.

He knows Scotland dug themselves out of a position where they could – and probably should – have lost the game to Samoa, but as Ross Ford, the captain, observed: "We were not lucky; you make your own luck".

Though there was an element of good fortune about the decisive opening, there was none about the move that actually produced the try.

"There was a great attitude throughout all three games," Robinson observed. "The will to succeed has been great throughout the squad. The replacements came on and did a really good job, with Mike Blair energising the team, Rob Harley making a couple of strong carries before the try, Tom Ryder coming on and also carrying the ball and hitting rucks, Scott Lawson really picking things up. They all played a part."

The big result had its big moment – and for Scotland it came with less than two minutes to go.

Mike Blair was up to charge down a clearance kick and establish the field position. The ball came back to him and he called what turned out to be the perfect move, heading infield at a sharp angle to pull the defence wide and offloading to Harley, on his inside shoulder, who had nobody between him and the try line.

Blair praised Harley, Harley praised the way that Blair created the space. Credit shared around, it is back to being that sort of team. For Harley himself, who had come off the bench 15 minutes earlier for his debut, it was dream time. Hours later he was still struggling to convince himself it was really true.

"I felt that, eventually, we were going to break them down with the amount of pressure that we had, but to make the actual breakthrough myself, that was incredible," he said.

Robinson admitted that, after the World Cup and Six Nations disasters, there was a reconstruction job to do.

"We had to go back to our foundations and build again," he said. "Also, it helps being on tour, while we also had a certain number of new players. Remember, we created five new caps on this tour, that is significant."

In the end, it was that regeneration, the team spirit and belief that did the trick. Against Australia, it not only created one of the most memorable defensive efforts of Scottish rugby history, but it set the tone for the matches to come. Ten minutes from the end against Fiji they were facing a mini crisis but pulled themselves through. Ten minutes from the end against Samoa they were in even deeper trouble, but again they did the necessary.

The determination was amazing. Some of the players could hardly move with heat exhaustion but somehow found the energy for one last effort.

The final passages of play were all Scotland, but the Six Nations-variety of side would never have found the clinical edge to make it pay with the killer score.

This one did. They went for a series of scrums to see if they could repeat the drive that would have produced a pushover try against Fiji if the home side had not given away a penalty try instead. No joy there. They tried getting to the wings; no joy there either. Time was running short, but Blair spotted a chance and the rest is history.

Which should not disguise the fact that, for 70 minutes, Samoa played the better rugby. The Scottish defence, however, as it had been in Australia, was close to unbreakable, even if there was a little good fortune to a couple of the decisions that cost Samoa scoring chances.

What was less impressive was the Scots' ability to hold on to the ball. Immediately after the game Robinson was fuming that the team had struggled to build even one phase, which may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but only by a small margin. The day after the game, he was a little less angst-ridden about the problems in both handling and the breakdown, but they were still an issue that needs be sorted.

However, Matt Scott, who looked more and more assured in his centre role as the tour went on, carved out an opening and for once his team-mates managed to retain the ball. Richie Gray powered over the line and, although he could not ground the ball, Joe Ansbro finished the job.

Greig Laidlaw converted and added a second-half penalty after a drop goal and two penalties from Tusi Pisi, the Samoa fly-half, had given them the lead. The game seemed to swing decisively the home way when Paul Williams offloaded to Pisi, who completed his personal grand slam of a try, conversion, penalties and drop goal with the score that seemed to have won Samoa the match.

It says everything for Scotland's rediscovered spirit that they managed to rescue the position. But if they could have hung on to the ball, they would never have been in trouble in the first place.