Superficially it was rather ugly but there was something quite magnificent about the way Scotland earned the right to turn on their critics as they reclaimed the Calcutta Cup at Murrayfield on Saturday.

The ball spent almost as much time in the air as England's miserable return flight to London would have taken, while it was the sort of afternoon that may have Roly Reid, the Edinburgh player who is on his second time around trying to convert from back-row forward to wing, to think again about how he wants to spend the last few years of his career.

However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and those who understand what being truly competitive is all about could do nothing but admire how the Scots reverted to what they do best to achieve this vital win.

Those complaining about lack of entertainment completely fail to realise just how important victory was. In the build-up to the match Rory Lamont had rightly said Scottish rugby's long-term future was on the line and in showing how much that mattered to him, his courage when collecting the head injury that forced his departure was rightly identified by Frank Hadden, his under pressure coach, as having set the tone.

By winning, Scotland are now back within range of finishing the year in the top eight in the world rankings which is vital to their World Cup seeding and, consequently, to giving future generations the chance to move Scottish rugby forward if and when more talent can be brought through. This win took them back up to ninth slot. With the right combination of results next week they could get into that top eight ahead of Ireland. If so, the two teams' respective fixtures for the rest of 2008 would make it likely that Scotland could hang on. Key to achieving that has been a need to remind themselves of what they are good at.

On Saturday, a defensive effort which saw, according to the officials statistics, just two missed tackles from 105 attempted, a focus on gaining territorial superiority and a preparedness to rely on two of the best kickers in the world game, showed they had done so.

Since a fine World Cup campaign the team had lost its way in apparently trying to appease those who wanted to see them play more attractively and criticised them for not doing so when they almost out-fought the world's third best side in a World Cup quarter-final. In that regard what now seem to be traditional conditions for this fixture on a quite miserable afternoon in Scotland's capital, did no harm.

Afterwards several players indicated they had adjusted their approach on the basis of that, but the way they played, direct and dynamic without ever over elaborating, would have been right no matter what the weather. This was about battling for the right to score more points and Chris Paterson (4-4) and Dan Parks (1-1), out-shot Jonny Wilkinson 3-4), to take them home.

That message was driven home by Ally Hogg, Edinburgh's captain whose omission from the squad at the start of this championship has been proven to be the major blunder that it looked at the time.

"You've got to keep grinding it out to win at this level," said the influential 25-year-old. "It wasn't a great game by any sort of manner, but you just have to believe in yourself and it showed the character in the squad. We maybe played more rugby against Ireland than we did today, but I'd rather play like we did today and win. If we've got to do that against Italy then fine. I don't think it will be a classic, but we've just got to keep going forward."

In that regard, Hadden's response when asked if, on seeing the weather, he had pondered whether it would be better to have Parks in his starting line-up, was telling.

"Let's just say I certainly wasn't panicking when he had to go on," said the coach.

It was actually far from Parks' best ever kicking display, but he did carry an authority that it is unreasonable to expect from Chris Paterson on the basis of how rarely he has played in the pivotal position. Hadden noted that the team has to play differently depending on which of them is at stand off and, as was the case at the World Cup, Parks' style is well suited to Scotland's current strengths.

The return of Simon Taylor who was, almost inevitably, the game's top ball carrier, further seemed to convey a sense of assurance that has been absent. That in turn may have helped let Nathan Hines, who has been shouldering a lot of responsibility as a senior figure in the forwards, maintain discipline while still making life horribly uncomfortable for opponents. Behind them Mike Blair was merely his usual brilliant self, calling the shots as both scrum-half and skipper to deservedly win the man of the match award.

Hadden reckoned a key stage had been, with his side leading 3-0, the way they held out as England twice opted to put penalty kicks to the corner and tried to drive over. Those goal-line stands also followed the incident that had seen Lamont hospitalised after recklessly diving on a bouncing ball head first as Iain Balshaw, quite legitimately, launched himself feet and perhaps knees first.

It was a match in which Scotland made no line breaks and kicked the ball away 38 times, while passing it on just 96 occasions and there was rarely a feeling that either side might score a try. Under Hadden those are the kind of games Scotland have won against opponents ranked around them or above them. They will need more of the same to beat Italy in Rome on Saturday, even if the sun is splitting the Spanish Steps.



Teams

Scotland: Southwell; Lamont (Parks, 21), Webster, Morrison, Walker; Paterson, Blair (Lawson, 76); Jacobsen (Dickinson 64), Ford (Thomson 25), Murray (Smith 68), Hines, MacLeod (White 63), Strokosch, Hogg (Brown 72), Taylor

England: Balshaw; Sackey, Noon, Flood (Tait 66), Vainikolo; Wilkinson (Hodgson for Wilkinson 70), Wigglesworth; Sheridan, Mears (Chuter 67), Vickery (Stevens 70), Shaw (Kay 66), Borthwick, Croft, Lipman (Narraway 73), Easter

Referee: J Kaplan (SA)