In the early days of Andy Robinson's reign as Scotland coach, he was asked if a promising autumn showing - they had beaten Australia in only his second Test in charge - meant that fans could look forward to a successful Six Nations.

But Robinson knew his history. In short, the answer was no.

Vern Cotter knows that pattern now as well. But while Robinson led Scotland to one win - over Ireland - in his first championship in charge of the Scots, Cotter has draw a complete blank. This was Scotland's third whitewash in the tournament since the turn of the millennium, and it was arguably the most depressing. From a sprightly start against France, they have spent the past six weeks on a downhill trajectory that has been almost relentless.

It is easy to point to the moments of outrageous misfortune that cost Scotland so dear. There was Finn Russell's yellow card - later upgraded to red and a one-game ban - against Wales, a match marked throughout by dismal refereeing. There was the injury that ended Richie Gray's Six Nations after just two games. There was the cruel moment in training when Alex Dunbar suffered the serious knee injury that will almost certainly rule him out of the World Cup.

But the championship is a test of fortitude and resilience as much as anything else. And in that regard, as in so many others, Scotland came up short. Other teams have faced up to adversities, and faced them down. England's injury list was horrendous at the outset, but they ended the tournament just a few agonising inches from being crowned champions.

There was an impression on Saturday that Scotland had been jaded by everything they have gone through in recent weeks. Even Jonny Gray, a perpetual motion machine in the early rounds, seemed to have lost a yard or two. Stuart Hogg kept his energy levels up to the last, and would have denied Ireland their title had the ball not been knocked away from him in the act of scoring a try near the end, but others failed to match up. The bench added little to the overall effort.

Tackles were missed, turnovers conceded. Staggeringly, Scotland stole the ball from Ireland only three times, but coughed it up on a dozen occasions. They were not remotely the equal of their opponents in the contest for possession or in terms of the intensity of their attack.

You almost felt for Wales watching Scotland's sorry attempts to stop Ireland building a score. The Welsh had set the bar high with their victory in Rome earlier in the day and had Scotland offered more resistance they would have stayed in pole position a little longer (although they would still have been overtaken by England). The Six Nations table at the end told a tale of a two-speed Europe, and Scotland are stuck in the slow lane.

Can that change before the World Cup gets underway in September? Cotter will have the luxury of a lengthy pre-tournament training period with his players, but other teams will be doing exactly the same thing so the marginal advantage could be negligible. He certainly knows that there is much work to be done.

"We are not able to build pressure, and teams are feeding off that," the coach sighed. "We lose possession, then we have to defend, then there is another penalty. It is frustrating that we cannot maintain our intensity. We do put teams under pressure but we don't maintain it.

"We have to understand how games are built. They are constructed from one lineout to another, from one phase to another. It goes for 80 minutes; that has to be understood and managed as a group. As soon as we lose a little bit of confidence we end up playing catch-up rugby. Catch-up rugby is not constructive rugby."

It is a given - or at least ought to be - that players at this level can perform the basic tasks and do so under pressure. For all the gnashing and wailing of fans, Scotland do not come up particularly short in that regard. However, where they have been found wanting throughout this tournament is in the transition from one phase to the next. On Saturday, Ireland's engine was purring nicely; Scotland had a box of bits and no apparent idea of how to put it together.

Experience helps, of course. When Ireland went through their phases, they slotted into their positions superbly. All four of their tries had their origins in lineout possession and all but one offered glistening examples of continuity play. They took the ball forward with power and accuracy, levering open gaps in the Scotland defence and sending their runners through.

It was a brutal contrast to what Scotland were doing. The Scots churned and churned, but all too often they saw the ball ripped away. Man of the match Sean O'Brien was magnificent in that area, but Ireland were awesome from one to 15. Were you to draw together a combined side from the two teams in this match, you would struggle to justify the selection of more than one or two Scots.

"It is down there with my worst feelings ever," said Scotland captain Greig Laidlaw as he reflected on the Six Nations campaign as a whole. However, he ended on an upbeat note as he looked ahead to the World Cup.

"Things can be fixed by then. We will spend time with Vern and the rest of the coaches. Then we have four games leading into the World Cup and we will have precious, precious time together and we will build."

But as any disconsolate Scottish fan would add, the task ahead looked like a heck of a big job on Saturday evening.