Murray comfortable in skipper's role

Scotland stand-in captain Scott Murray admitted the most memorable aspect of captaining his country for the first time was making the traditional speech at the after-match dinner.

The Lion celebrated his 50th cap against Italy on Saturday by being made skipper in the absence of injured scrum-half Bryan Redpath.

But Murray, who once again impressed during Scotland’s surprisingly easy 47-15 victory, insisted it was business as usual until after the final whistle.

He said: “It felt just the same for me to be fair. Gordon Ross organised the backs, I did the line-outs and the only different thing was I got to lead the team out.

“Obviously it was my 50th cap and that was a great feeling, one that I’ll never forget.

“But it was mainly the same sort of feeling as usual – apart from reading the speech after the game.”

Scotland’s first of their three warm-up games before they head off for the World Cup in Australia was a test that Ian McGeechan’s men came through with flying colours, albeit against a poor Italian side.

Murray claimed the Scots’ recent new fitness regime bore fruit against Italy but admitted the performance was not flawless and the Edinburgh man looked forward to a tougher test against Wales on Saturday.

He said: “It was a massive boost to score six tries and our fitness showed.

“That was part of the reason we were able to get back up and into the game quicker than the Italians.

“But in games to come it’s not going to be as easy as that, it’s going to be far more difficult.

“We’ll come up against fitter sides and we’ll have to work a lot harder to get anything from them.

“There were few lapses in defence. There was a lot that went wrong in the line-outs but the boys just cleared them up pretty well.

“I think that’s a good thing because we wont get carried away by the result and hopefully we’ll keep our feet on the ground because we’re still a long way from where we want to be.

“It’s about analysing that game now and looking towards the Wales game.

“I haven’t had a look at their game against England but I know they’ll come out desperate to put that right.

“There’s a few of the Welsh guys I haven’t come up against but physically the game will be played more off the deck.

“The Italians are big boys and took a bit longer to get themselves about the park whereas the Welsh guys will be more on their feet looking to play the ball.”