Gregor Townsend claimed his Scotland side “weren’t as fluid as we would’ve liked” in their 42-7 win over the USA in Washington.
While Townsend was pleased with the enthusiasm of his players in difficult conditions in the six-try win, he admitted to some frustration at his side not being able to impose their game on the hosts.
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He said: “It was a frustrating game. The ball was wet, you’d have liked the game to have flowed more. There was a lot of penalties and stoppages, mainly against the US.
"We built a good score and I think we would’ve wanted to have just kept on and been a bit more accurate in the second half, but I can’t fault the effort.
“We had to defend on a number of occasions, I thought the USA were physical in the second half in particular. It was great for us to know that we’re still putting our bodies on the line.”
Tries from record-equaller Duhan van der Merwe, a hat-trick from hooker Ewan Ashman, George Horne and Matt Fagerson gave the Scots their second win in two on their tour of the Americas.
When asked about the importance of Ashman and rolling maul tries to his style of play, Townsend heaped praise on the Edinburgh man and his front row compatriots.
He said: “The maul was disintegrating, let’s say illegally but that’s a skill to stay in there.
“Johnny Matthews does it really well for Glasgow too. The temptation is to break out on your own but to keep going through the middle and finish was very good.
“Ewan’s had a great season – I know there’s parts of his game he’d like to improve for next season but to finish them off really helped us out.
“We hadn’t looked at [pushover tries] as a USA weakness. We just wanted to build on our scrum performance in the Six Nations, where we know we could’ve got more out of that area in terms of winning penalties.
"To get a pushover is the ultimate, so that was great to see. I thought the bench did really well in that area. The props came on first, both Rory Sutherland and Elliot Millar Mills were very good, and then Robbie Smith had an excellent second cap.”
Despite the Audi Field turf appearing to break up at times and rigorous work being undertaken by ground staff at the interval, the head coach was quick to dismiss the turf as an excuse for any scrum shortcomings.
“I think it was OK at the scrum – it looked a lot worse than it was," Townsend said.
He added: "A couple of times they were collapsing but I don’t think that was due to the pitch. I think the defence were heavily penalised in the first half on both sides.
"The USA penalty count was quite high but in the second half, the referee started rewarding the defence a bit more.
"We were struggling to get the consistency of knowing what to do in the tackle area – some of that is on us, we have to make better decisions.”
Having conceded to 14 men following a handling error from Matt Fagerson two metres from his own line, Townsend also emphasised how important Ashman’s third try just before half-time was swung momentum back Scotland’s way.
He added: “We would’ve been frustrated if we hadn’t come in with another try because we were on their line for about five minutes.
“We were stopped a couple of times by good defence, but maybe we could’ve shifted the ball to the width.
"But the maul was a good weapon for us, so it was good to get those seven points in the end."
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