Scotland 23 Italy 19

Duncan Hodge kicked Scotland to their first Six Nations victory of the season as they beat Italy 23-19 at Murrayfield on Saturday.

Fly-half Hodge was successful with five of his seven attempts, scoring 17 points, including five penalties and one drop goal, helping Scotland to narrowly avenge last season's shock 34-20 defeat in Rome.

However, Scottish captain Budge Pountney dismissed the fact the win had not been convincing.  "To get the first win on board this season is important even if we weren't so pleased with the performance," he said.

"We made a couple of errors in the second-half which allowed them to get back in the game but overall it has been a positive day and it will give us confidence," he added.

Italy fly-half Diego Dominguez gave a typically peerless kicking display, scoring 14 points with his boot.  But this time it was not enough, although Italy did have the consolation of scoring the try of the match through flanker and man-of-the-match Mauro Bergamasco.

Italy have now lost all four of their matches in this season's championship, putting them in pole position for the wooden spoon.

This was a match Brad Johnstone's team could have won after being 10-6 up at the break.

Then Hodge and Dominguez exchanged penalty goals at the start of the second half before Italy No.8 Carlo Checchinato was yellow-carded by French referee Joel Dume for persistently killing the ball.

Hodge maintained his then perfect kicking record, slotting over the resultant penalty and Scotland were just a point behind at 12-13.

However, his 52nd-minute miss after Bergamasco had infringed left Italy's slender lead intact.  But three minutes later Scotland were in the lead.  Hodge kicked a penalty to touch and from the resultant drive Brive prop Tom Smith just did enough to ground the ball on the line.

Dume called for the video referee before awarding the score but worryingly for Scotland, Hodge missed the conversion with a wild slice to the right.  Even so they were 17-13 ahead.

Dominguez's boot was more reliable and another penalty took Italy back into the game at 17-16 behind and then his accurate kick put the vistors 19-17 ahead after the Scotland forwards erred again.

However, Italian discipline cracked when substitute Giovanni Raineri was penalised for preventing fair release and this time Hodge was on target to give Scotland a 20-19 lead.

Earlier Scotland signalled their intention to grasp the victory when Hodge took a leaf out of Welsh fly-half Neil Jenkins' book and fired over a drop-goal after 38 seconds to put the home side into an early 3-0 lead.

Their bright start continued when Hodge put up an enormous up-and-under, but the chasing Gregor Townsend could only knock on as full-back Cristian Stoica failed to collect.

Italy's first attack of any note was pulled up when Checchinato was penalised for illegal use of the boot.

Hodge kicked his first penalty of the afternoon to put his side 6-0 up when the Italians strayed offside after 21 minutes.

And they should have been even further in front when John Leslie and Townsend combined beautifully to put Craig away, but the youngster could not beat last line of defence Stoica who bundled him into touch.

With Townsend increasingly prominent Scotland continued to cut loose with sparkling rugby but Italy hung in gamely and got their reward through a sparkling 26th-minute try from Bergamasco.  The Treviso flanker took a pass from the base of a scrum -- given after Pountney lost possession in the tackle -- before slipping a Townsend tackle, stepping around Redpath and out-paced full-back Chris Paterson on his way to a 35-metre sprint to the line.

Dominguez fired over a superb touchline conversion to put the visitors into a shock 7-6 lead.  And he stretched it out to 10-6 almost immediately with a 45-metre penalty after another Pountney misdemeanour.

Italy rallied at the close but Scotland just did enough to cling on for an unconvincing win.

Yellow card:  Checchinato

The Teams:

Scotland:  1 Tom Smith, 2 Gordon Bulloch, 3 Mattie Stewart, 4 Stuart Grimes, 5 Scott Murray, 6 Budge Pountney (c), 7 Martin Leslie, 8 Simon Taylor, 9 Bryan Redpath, 10 Duncan Hodge, 11 James Craig, 12 John Leslie, 13 Gregor Townsend, 14 Kenny Logan, 15 Chris Paterson
Reserves:  Gordon McIlwham, Jon Petrie, Cammie Murray, Steve Scott
Unused:  Richard Metcalfe, Glenn Metcalfe, Andy Nicol

Italy:  1 Andrea Lo Cicero, 2 Alessandro Moscardi (c), 3 Franco Properzi-Curti, 4 Wim Visser, 5 Andrea Gritti, 6 Mauro Bergamasco, 7 Aaron Persico, 8 Carlo Checchinato, 9 Filippo Frati, 10 Diego Dominguez, 11 Luca Martin, 12 Manuel Dallan, 13 Walter Pozzebon, 14 Massimiliano Perziano, 15 Cristian Stoica
Reserves:  Matteo Mazzantini, Carlo Caione, Salvatore Perugini, Giovanni Raineri
Unused:  Andrea Benatti, Giampiero De Carli, Andrea Scanavacca

Att:  60,708
Referee:  Joel Dume (Fra)

Points Scorers:

Scotland
Tries:  Smith T.J. 1
Pen K.:  Hodge D.W. 5
Drop G.:  Hodge D.W. 1

Italy
Tries:  Bergamasco M. 1
Conv:  Dominguez D. 1
Pen K.:  Dominguez D. 4