The Scots fell to their heaviest home defeat against the Wallabies on Saturday in a 44-15 loss at Murrayfield.

The home side had raced into a 10-0 lead and had a good spell of pressure at the start of the second half, but Mark Gerrard scored two quick tries and the visitors grabbed two more late in the game.

Kellock said: "They had a couple of spells where they had a lot of pressure on us and it was a very tiring stage of the game for us to defend like that.

"They came out with points most of the time, but when we had the pressure we didn't. That would be a telling difference.

"If we had taken points at the beginning of the second half it would have been different."

The 25-year-old only found out he was starting on the eve of the game when Nathan Hines was controversially forced to pull out.

The Perpignan forward thought he was able to play after appealing against a 20-day ban imposed in France for apparently kicking Stade Francais lock Mike James.

But doubts over his eligibility were raised by the International Rugby Board and the Scottish Rugby Union pulled Hines out.

Kellock said: "I was just delighted that I got a start. It was obviously unfortunate for Nathan, though I've not seen the incident. I found out just prior to the team run."

Another controversy was the number of times the Scots were penalised for bringing down the scrum, especially in the first half.

Kellock was not sure if Irish referee Donal Courtney was giving the benefit of the doubt to the favourites.

He said: "I was behind Euan (Murray) for most of the game and I thought the big man was hitting well. We were beating them to the hit.

"As far as preconceptions are concerned, that is something the referee would have to answer because I don't know.

"But personally I thought we were doing better than the stats show."

Wallabies skipper Stirling Mortlock agreed that the Aussies were clinical in attack.

He said: "I think Scotland certainly got on the front foot the first 15 to 20 minutes. They are a team that seems to look to play a bit more expansive football than they have in the past.

"They went wide a number of times and tested us out in the midfield and in the flanks.

"I thought they attacked pretty well when they had the ball. Their driving line-out in particular is a strength.

"They are a pretty good team but I was very happy with the way our team responded.

"We took advantage of most of our opportunities."