Before the World Cup, the 25-year-old had started in his favoured role only twice - in a midweek fixture on tour in New Zealand in 2000, and a non-cap match against the Barbarians last May.Now, after coming up trumps against Fiji, he stepped up to the Brisbane roulette wheel and endured the luck of a man who had backed both the red and the black only to see the little silver sphere wind up on zero. Brad Pitt would have struggled to look good in the blue No 10 jersey yesterday. A decent man, not given to outrageous words either of praise or damnation, McGeechan had never explained persuasively why he considered Paterson a wager of the long-odds variety. Perhaps McGeechan, far from putting off an obvious decision, was merely saving Paterson from himself. If Ian McGeechan's selection of Chris Paterson at fly-half had been regarded as a gamble, the outgoing Scotland coach lost his stake against the Wallabies and with it the chance of a final throw of the dice against the All Blacks next week.

But I am afraid you have to accept that southern- hemisphere referees tend to ignore things that would be jumped on immediately by refs back home. The Aussies struggled to assert themselves and took advantage of some slack tackling to get their try-scoring under way in the second half. Mat Rogers dropped the ball a couple of times but he makes a very dangerous back three with Wendell Sailor and Lote Tuqiri, who looked menacing.A lot of Australia's play is geared to letting this back three loose, and as long as they are around no opponent can feel completely safe.. But the lack of incisive finishing has been their undoing for a long time now. Even allowing for the amount of balls they spilled they still look light in the try department and, once more, it was left to the forwards to score the late try they richly deserved.They had a right to complain about the number of occasions that the referee, Steve Walsh, ignored crossing by the Australian backs. Their forwards were strong and aggressive in the set-pieces, they defended in a solid and organised way, and with Chris Paterson playing well at stand-off they mounted some promising attacks.

It is amazing that Ireland, Wales and Scotland have had such similar experiences during the tournament. They each struggled to impose themselves in the pool stages, but when they qualified they suddenly cut loose and produced great performances.In the first half yesterday, the Scots were superb. All these cheeky little flicked passes look flamboyant, but he knows exactly where the ball is going. They had to work hard yesterday, but you can put that down to an excellent performance by Scotland. His most spectacular effort was passing through his legs for Joe Rokocoko to score the final try.