Scotland conceded six tries in all, five before half-time, and only threatened when the game was already lost.

Tries from Ryan Jones, Rhys Williams, Shane Williams plus two from Kevin Morgan opened Wales a remarkable 38-3 lead by the interval.

Rhys Williams added another early in the second-half before Scotland, having made a number of changes, responded with tries from Andy Craig, debutant Rory Lamont and Chris Paterson.

But the game was lost by then and Bulloch admitted: ''The plan was to make tackles and put pressure on and get in their face. It's the players' fault. There is no other person to blame other than the guy who missed the tackle or the offload.

''In the first half we seemed to be caught chasing the game. Even when we elected to run the ball we were lacking in options. That is something we have to work on this week.''

Fly-half Gordon Ross and lock Nathan Hines made impressive contributions off the bench - but that simply fuelled the anger of many Scotland supporters, who felt both should have been in the side from the start.

Williams had come under fire for starting with Dan Parks and the Glasgow fly-half endured a miserable 40 minutes, during which he fired off one horrendous intercept pass to gift Wales their second try.

Replacing him with Ross at half-time appeared a tacit admission that Williams had got his selection wrong.

''The substitutes we made at half-time had a big impact. Gordon Ross and Nathan Hines in particular. Three tries to one in the second half was a fair reflection,'' said Williams.

''I thought Dan Parks kicked out of hand extremely well and got us out of a lot of trouble. The intercept pass cost us very dearly. Gordon Ross got his opportunity and he took it well.''

The defeat was still a record against Wales, but the margin could have been worse had Ross and Hines not sparked Scotland into life. Craig, Lamont and Paterson hauled them back from 43-3 down, with the Scots eventually losing 46-22.

''We had no other choice going on in the second-half - we had to make a difference,'' said Hines.

''All the players were really appalled with the first-half performance and the second-half really is not any consolation - everyone is just gutted.''

Scotland travel to Twickenham next Saturday and face the very real prospect of just one win - a dour 18-10 victory over Italy a fortnight ago - in two RBS 6 Nations campaigns under Williams.