IF anybody runs into Scott Johnson over the next few weeks, don't be surprised if he looks befuddled and bewildered.
Don't worry, it is probably not permanent, just that Scotland's interim head coach must have been poring over the tapes of the summer tour and trying to work out what to make of it all. If any videos have made their way over to France, don't expect Vern Cotter, the coach in waiting, to be any less confused.
Seldom can a Scotland tour have produced so much information and so little clarity. If there is a branch of Headscratchers Anonymous nearby, expect a flood of Scotland pundits to sweep into the meetings seeking an end to the misery of trying to make out what it all means.
The headlines are simple: played three; won one, lost two, finished third out of four. On the plus side, 10 players won their first caps and some look the real deal. On the negative, five injuries and a baby forced six players on the next flight home – at least one of those injuries, the one to Peter Horne, the Glasgow centre, is going to keep him out of action for most of next season.
The headlines don't tell the whole story, though. Was the no-show in the opening game against Samoa a case of too much rust in a side where nobody had played for a month? Untried combinations taking time to click? Or too many soft Scots getting beaten up by rough, tough bullies from the Pacific Islands?
In nailing down the answer, remember Tonga did much the same in Aberdeen last November, so the idea that Scotland are not able to handle the rough stuff cannot be dismissed out of hand. The biggest problem with that idea is that in just seven days they went from victims to aggressors when they took on the sterner challenge of South Africa.
What should Johnson take from that Springbok game? The way the side stormed into a 17-6 lead or the way they allowed the home side to score 24 unanswered points in the final half hour? And Italy – another subdued performance but the spirit, ability and confidence to steal the result at the death. Every positive has a minus and nearly every minus either a positive or, at least, an explanation.
Johnson was talking from well before the party left the UK about the real point of the exercise being to test the depth of Scottish rugby.
Well, he stuck his stick in that particular pond and found that while by and large it was pretty shallow, there were some gems like Tim Swinson waiting for his chance.
Not that it was always a fair test. The squad left home not just without the two leading hookers but also with two of the possible replacements also injured.
The net result was that when Pat MacArthur went down after less then two minutes of the opening game and Stevie Lawrie then reported to training with a bad back, Johnson was left with Scott Lawson on his own and had to call out Fraser Brown, who is talented but whose entire professional experience is 44 minutes of action for Glasgow, all off the bench.
It was a similar story at openside flanker. Johnson would have loved to pick a specialist, but with all four who ply their trade in that role for Scotland injured, he had to make do as best he could – an exercise that became even tougher when the No 7 shirt seemed to attract some sort of voodoo curse that forced both Kelly Brown and Ryan Wilson out of the tour.
That's all before we begin to think about what happened at fly-half. Tom Heathcote came through two starts but lacked the character to stamp himself on the game. A new boy, maybe he was overawed by the faces around him and anyway, he also got the two games where the pack were getting smashed. It is always hard to shine in those circumstances.
As for the rest, Ruaridh Jackson did not last until half-time in his start and was unfit for the final game. Horne picked up his knee injury after being on the field for less than 10 minutes as his replacement, so that yet again Greig Laidlaw had to shift half-back roles.
All of which was outside Johnson's control and made both selection and performances far too much of a muddle to be particularly useful in coming to any firm judgments.
There are a few verdicts that can be offered. It was Johnson who pointed out that Matt Scott is about the same size as Ma'a Nonu, and said it was time the centre started playing more like the Kiwi. He must have been pleased with the result. The power may not be there yet, but at his age Nonu was not playing like the Nonu we know today. Time is on Scott's side and there were plenty of signs that he is growing into his role with increasing assurance.
Outside him, Alex Dunbar showed plenty of promise but faces competition not just from the likes of Nick De Luca and Max Evans, both left at home, but also from the likes of Mark Bennett, who was on Under-20 duty, and the need to find some role for the rejuvenated Sean Lamont. The tour may have been all about youngsters but he made the strongest possible case for the old guard.
Up front there was Swinson and signs that David Denton is getting back to last season's form. Euan Murray was another making the case for experience and Johnnie Beattie showed huge heart in playing through his injuries. On the other hand, Grant Gilchrist was anonymous in his two outings, the scrum was thrashed by Italy until Jon Welsh got a go and the breakdown varied between kamikaze ferocity and sleepwalking.
You have to pity the coaches, who also made mistakes, not least in making so many changes for the opening match without having managed to arrange some sort of bounce game to help glue the new combinations together.
So feel free to feel sorry for those who have to make sense of it all. As mixed messages go, this tour was up there with the best. A bit like a waltz: one step forward, one back, two to the side, twirl and start again.
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