The Edinburgh full-back, who retired from international rugby after the 2011 World Cup, was left kicking his heels watching his first Championship from the sidelines since 2000.

But rather than dwell on the negatives, Paterson stressed now is the time to pull together and called on youngsters such as Richie Gray to learn from the experience.

He told The Scotsman: “Having watched the Scotland games I’m as disappointed as everyone else. It’s tough as I know from having been involved in the last whitewash championship in 2004.

“We came out of it with a 100-point win over Japan in the Autumn internationals later that year and the only response has to be to do the small things right and hopefully that takes care of the bigger bit.

“It is it such a difficult situation to be in, though, because international rugby requires huge amounts of effort, guts and team-ship.

“I think there is light at the end of the tunnel. Obviously. Scotland results were poor but there were good bits as well as bad bits.

“There were some good performances across the board and some good young players coming through. The players are working hard and committing to the cause. They just need to stay with it.”