It was the latest in a long sequence of what the military refer to as blue on blue' incidents that ultimately cost Scotland victory at Murrayfield on Saturday. A joyless RBS 6 Nations Championship clash ended miserably with medics attempting to revive Ronan O'Gara, brought another Triple Crown for Ireland and another painful defeat for Scotland.

In a campaign puncutated by repeated friendly-fire incidents this latest navy blue on navy blue mishap produced the game's only try. Like the three early scores that made it almost impossible for Scotland to beat Italy, it was not crafted but gifted.

Afterwards, Dan Parks admitted his error had been avoidable, that he should not have gone through with a planned move to kick to the left wing having received a poor pass. Forced to adjust he let Ronan O'Gara get to him and his opposite number eventually dotted the ball down under the bar after good link play from Gordon D'Arcy and Simon Easterby.

On the face of it, the consequences were not as catastrophic as when Phil Godman, dropped in favour of Parks, made a similar mistake to launch that calamitous spell against Italy a fortnight earlier. Yet there were 20 points between Scotland and Italy at the end. Only one separated the teams on Saturday.

Indeed, it was Parks who observed afterwards that his side had needed an eight-point lead rather than the five-point advantage held 15 minutes before the end. If that try had not been conceded the advantage could have been 12, had the match followed a similar pattern and would have been all but won.

Parks was efficient before and after that, but the management's biggest issue of how to make their back-line more threatening remains unresolved. The demand for Chris Paterson to be moved to stand-off from the start, rather than late in games, will not go away unless matches like this are being won regularly.

The other part of that equation is that one of the rare opportunities that fell to Scotland to score a try - the official stats showed one Scottish line break to six by their opponents - was not taken. Sean Lamont's powerful break had sliced open the Irish defence and the dream scenario was that his fellow winger would then be on hand to finish. Paterson did the first bit perfectly, getting on his shoulder, but had neither the pace nor power to get away from Denis Hickie. Had Thom Evans, Simon Danielli or Lamont's brother Rory been there, the outcome might well have been different.

Even the questionable tactic of moving Paterson to stand-off late in matches was prevented on Saturday by the injury at half-time that rules Hugo Southwell out for the rest of the season.

It is hard to see an alternative to starting Paterson at stand-off, not because Parks did badly, but because right now this is an utterly toothless Scotland side, albeit there is no lack of passion or effort.

Little wonder Scotland's coaches and captain sat so grim-faced at the post-match press conference. It does not matter that they got so close to arguably the second best side in the world. They are not as good as Ireland, but with slightly better execution, they could still have pulled off the biggest upset of this year's championship against their off-form visitors.

Afterwards, George Graham, the forwards coach, was very clear that the work at the lineout had dropped below previous standards, an advantage in the scrum had not been fully capitalised on and that there had been naivete around the breakdown. When one questioner then suggested that Frank Hadden, the head coach, had been wrong to criticise the defence, Graham spluttered with rage. "You thought it was good? I thought it was absolutely abysmal. Why? Every time they got tackled, did they get beyond the gain-line? Yes. You are looking at individual tackles, we are looking at shape, the way the defence is set-up.

"I'm sure if you guys were sitting in front of the technical box you might have heard Alan Tait the defence coach once or twice. We are really disappointed with that."

Yet it was the blunders that saw a five-point lead - hard earned, with Paterson taking every kickable chance - thrown away to two penalties in no time.

The homework had shown that Dave Pearson, the English referee, was particularly tough on players not rolling away at the tackle. Even if he was even sharper on it than usual on the day the players had had 70 minutes to adjust to that when the first of those penalties was conceded. Simon Taylor was then caught offside as what is termed a "lazy runner", a schoolboy error.

Both were soft penalties and though by no means as reliable as Paterson (he kicked five of seven opportunities) O'Gara took those chances. Sadly, though, the match will be remembered more for how he finished the game, fighting for breath under the treatment of medics.