Scotland 37 Romania 10

Scotland overcame a battling Romania side by 37-10 at Murrayfield on Saturday, the home side scoring five tries during a far from impressive performance.

Ian McGeechan's side face South Africa next, but will need a vast all-round improvement if they hope to beat the Springboks such was the general lack of urgency and penetration in their game.

Indeed, Scotland could have found themselves behind in the opening moments of the match after Romanian fly-half Ionut Tofan missed with a drop-goal and was then awarded a penalty for an offside decision against a Scottish player.

Tofan could not find his target from the static kick though and that early let off seemed to galvanise the Scots, who almost instantly scored their opening try after a very effective close quarter drive from a line-out.

Second rower Stuart Grimes was the man in possession as the drive went over the tryline and Laney was able to add the extras.

Tofan finally opened his side's account with a successful penalty but the three points were swiftly cancelled out by a Laney penalty.

Romania shook off the setback to open their account through a Tofan penalty after Scotland forfeited 10 metres for not retreating fast enough.  But it took the home side just four minutes to claw back the three points with a Laney kick.

Laney added another penalty goal in the 24th minute to increase Scotland's lead before wing Chris Paterson scythed through the Romanian defence to score his side's second try.

The second half saw Scotland rack up tries through Martin Leslie, Budge Pountney and Stuart Moffat, while Romania were at least able to give themselves the comfort of scoring a try against their hosts, Tofan going over for the late score and converting.

The Teams:

Scotland:  1 Bruce Douglas, 2 Gordon Bulloch, 3 Tom Smith, 4 Stuart Grimes, 5 Scott Murray, 6 Simon Taylor, 7 Martin Leslie, 8 Budge Pountney, 9 Bryan Redpath (c), 10 Gordon Ross, 11 Chris Paterson, 12 Brendan Laney, 13 Andrew Craig, 14 Nikki Walker, 15 Stuart Moffatt
Reserves:  Nathan Hines, Jon Petrie, Ben Hinshelwood, Steve Scott, Mattie Stewart, Gregor Townsend
Unused:  Graeme Beveridge

Romania:  1 Petru Balan, 2 Marius Tincu, 3 Nicolae Dragos Dima, 4 Cristian Petre, 5 Augustin Petrechei, 6 George Chiriac, 7 Florin Corodeanu, 8 Alin Petrache, 9 Petre Mitu, 10 Ionut Tofan, 11 Vasile Ghioc, 12 Romeo Gontineac (c), 13 Valentin Maftei, 14 Ioan Teodorescu, 15 Gabriel Brezoianu
Reserves:  Stefan Dragnea, Lucian Sirbu, Marcel Socaciu, Petrisor Toderasc
Unused:  Marius Coltuneac, Cristian Podea

Referee:  Turner a.

Points Scorers:

Scotland
Tries:  Moffatt J.S.D. 1, Pountney A.C. 1, Grimes S.B. 1, Leslie M.D. 1, Paterson C.D. 1
Conv:  Laney B.J. 3
Pen K.:  Laney B.J. 2

Romania
Tries:  Tofan I.R. 1
Conv:  Tofan I.R. 1
Pen K.:  Tofan I.R. 1