Cusiter positive on Scots future

Scotland failed to make the most of their early superiority against Argentina

Chris Cusiter believes Scotland can solve their attacking problems in time to make an impact in the Six Nations.

Once again, Scotland were let down by their inability to breach the try-line as they squandered a 6-0 half-time lead to lose 9-6 to Argentina on Saturday.

"If we can learn lessons from this game for the Six Nations, that's the only way for us to go," said the captain.

"We'll all go away and work on our game over this winter and come back in the Six Nations better players."

Following wins over Fiji and Australia, Cusiter had been looking to be the first man to lead Scotland to a clean sweep of autumn international wins for seven years.

But the home side failed to make the most of their first half superiority and lost their way once Nathan Hines was sent to the sin-bin after the interval.

I don't doubt that we have the skills to finish things off, but we just weren't able to execute under pressure Chris Cusiter

"Of course, we wanted massively to finish this series with another win but we came up short," added Cusiter. "It's a tough one to take."

Reflecting on the final game of a series that has yielded just two tries from three games, the Glasgow scrum-half said: "Our finishing let us down.

"We were only ever going to get a couple of opportunities and we had to take them.

"We didn't get the points on the board when we could have and that cost us the game."

One of those opportunities saw Cusiter brought down by Pumas captain Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe after a superb break involving Johnnie Beattie, Sean Lamont and Nick De Luca.

"I know there was open space in front of me but he had the legs on me and chopped me down," explained the frustrated skipper.

"I was the last support runner so we were a wee bit behind on that one."

Hines was sin-binned for a spear tackle but Cusiter was not critical of the lock's aggression.

MY SPORT: DEBATE Give your reaction to Scotland's performance against the Pumas

"We were struggling when Nathan went off; we were backs to the ball for a while and they got back in the game," he said.

"I wouldn't put the blame on Nathan.

"For that 10 minutes, we were under the cosh a bit and we kind of had to almost shelve our ambition.

"But we had plenty of time when we were back to a full complement to get ourselves back in front on the scoreboard and we didn't execute well enough.

"I don't doubt that we have the skills to finish things off, but we just weren't able to execute under pressure."

Scotland open their Six Nations campaign with a home game against France on 7 February and also welcome England to Murrayfield.

The Scots are looking to improve on a dismal recent record in the tournament, which has yielded just one win from each of the last three campaigns.