“This squad has been an absolute pleasure to work with," he said after watching them lift the trophy.

"Today was a great all round team performance. By winning the tournament we’ve achieved what we set out to do, and played some great rugby along the way.

“The Scots put in a very competitive performance and it took longer that we expected to break them down. But we stuck to our guns well and although it was a pretty even game for about an hour, we stepped it up after that.”

Newcastle's Steve Jones started at fullback for Scotland 'A', having scored a hat-trick on his Churchill Cup debut earlier in the tournament.