The thing about experiments is they sometimes blow up in your face.

And so it turned out for Scotland in Durban yesterday, as Samoa's mighty forwards and almost-as-mighty backs exploited the inexperience of a Scottish side that had three new caps in the starting line-up, with another three pitched in from the bench.

Not that the new boys should shoulder all the blame. The most vivid error came when debutant replacement fly-half Peter Horne was steam-rollered by Alesana Tuilagi as the Samoan winger thundered in for his second try. But the story of Scotland's game, in their first Test defeat to the Pacific Islanders, was of collective malaise, not individual mistakes.

In fairness, Scotland head coach Scott Johnson did not hide behind the excuse that this was simply a development exercise. Instead, he focused on the basics of defence and contact, areas where Scotland were a distant second best.

"It is a collision problem," he said flatly. "There was some great defence but all Samoa's tries came on the back of one-on-one tackles that were missed. There was nothing else. If you lose tackles against a side like that, a side that can score, you are in trouble. They are behind your line and you are in trouble."

In defence of the boldness of his selection, Johnson drew comparisons with England's so-called Tour of Hell to Australia in 1998, when the visitors were hammered 76-0. The coach suggested England's World Cup-winning side of five years later was honed in that adversity, but it was a disingenuous argument. England gave debuts to seven players that day and most fell off the radar screen soon afterwards. Not one had anything to do with the World Cup triumph.

It is hard to imagine the new Scots pulling off the same vanishing act. Pat MacArthur, was desperately unlucky to suffer a knee injury after just nine minutes, a setback that is likely to end his tour, but the other starters, Alex Dunbar and Greig Tonks, put in decent shifts. Steve Lawrie covered well for MacArthur, and Duncan Taylor and Horne earned pass marks at least.

But Scotland were horribly off the pace as a team. Many of the players had not had a competitive game for six weeks, and they were caught cold, rabbits in the Samoan headlights. The Scots had coughed up two tries before the quarter-hour was reached. They tightened up in the middle third of the game but fell away badly towards the finish.

Scotland now face a race to ready themselves to face South Africa in Nelspruit next weekend. "We will be up against the second best team in the world and one that prides itself on its physicality," Johnson acknowledged. "Today we were poor at that area of the game. You don't have to be any sort of mathematician or scholar to work out what we need to do.

"We won't run away or hide from that. Test football is usually won by the side that is most clinical in the collision area. We lost a lot of players [with injuries]. That happens, but it disrupted us a little. We are battered and bruised and a few will leave the tour. We will have to look at our stocks."

As well as MacArthur, Kelly Brown (ankle) and Euan Murray (hamstring) were causing concern last night. Decisions on their involvement next week will probably be made today, to allow replacements time to travel and get up to speed with the squad.

Tom Heathcote, making his first start at fly-half, was culpable in defence a few times but came through reasonably well in other areas. However, there was a notable deviation from that pattern of all-round competence when he lined up his first kick-off. He sclaffed it terribly and it flew straight into touch, handing the initiative to Samoa at the start.

To be frank, they never really lost it. After seven minutes, a sizzling counter-attack down the right touchline left Tim Visser floundering with an exchange of passes and sent James Sooailo sprinting over for the first try. Five minutes later they added a second, Tuilagi finishing off on the left side after a sweeping move across the pitch.

Left trailing 14-3, Scotland girded themselves admirably over the next 20 minutes or so. By half time, the excellent Greig Laidlaw had added two penalties to his opening 10th-minute strike and another followed just after the break.

Scottish hopes surged when Sean Lamont was put over on the right side by a pass from Dunbar after a flagging backline move had been revived superbly by Heathcote. That gave Scotland the lead by three but Sooialo soon levelled with a penalty.

Scotland's fate was sealed by a trademark blast by Tuilagi, who came spearing in off the blindside wing at a scrum, swept past Laidlaw and Lamont and flattened Horne on his way to the try line. Sooialo's conversion, and a later penalty, completed Samoa's scoring.

Scotland will haul their battered bodies north to Nelspruit today. Mentally, however, the damage may be even worse.

Scotland: G Tonks; S Lamont, A Dunbar, M Scott, T Visser D Taylor, 68); T Heathcote ( P Horne, 58), G Laidlaw (H Pyrgos, 68); A Dickinson (M Low, 64), P MacArthur (S Lawrie, 9), E Murray (G Cross, 45), G Gilchrist (Edinburgh), A Kellock (J Hamilton, 64), A Strokosch (Perpignan), K Brown ( captain; R Wilson, 40), J Beattie .

Samoa: J Sooialo; A Leiua, P Williams (captain), J Leota, (S Mapusua 74), A Tuilagi; T Pisi, J Sua; L Mulipola (M Leiataua, 64), W Avei (M Leiataua, 54), C Johnston (J Johnston, 54), T Paulo, D Leo( F Lemalu, 54), O Treviranus, J Lam, T Tuifua.

Referee: J Lacey (Ireland)