Short of burning effigies of their coach Richie Dixon on the pavements of Princes Street, it is hard to see where Scotland go from here.
The lower-fibre diet of Five Nations rugby is unlikely to ease the hollow feeling in the pit of Caledonian stomachs. The realists know that record defeats in each of their last three outings, by an aggregate margin of 152-38, have swept aside the last of the sandbags protecting the shallow pool of Scottish playing talent. It is scant consolation that Saturday's humiliation proved, in many ways, easier to digest than the Wallaby debacle a fortnight ago; when you are numb already, pain is a relative concept.
Scotland have leaked over 60 points before at Test level, losing 62-31 to New Zealand in Dunedin just 17 months ago, but conceding 10 tries on their own doorstep is less easy to explain away. The hawks in the ongoing clubs-versus-districts argument now have more than enough ammunition to escalate the civil war.
There is already knee-jerk talk of employing a coach from overseas, which shows just how quickly the tide has turned since the Lions tour. If Ian McGeechan and Jim Telfer, those tried and trusted alchemists, cannot staunch the bleeding, which expensive wizards do the Scots intend turning to?
The result from Twickenham and the swaths of empty seats merely compounded the Scottish Rugby Union's misery. You cannot fool even the regulars for long, particularly at £28 a ticket, and official estimates of a 50,000 attendance, like the final margin, looked horribly inflated. "It's obvious we are falling further behind the southern hemisphere teams," admitted Dixon. Rebuilding morale is going to take time on all fronts.
Against Australia, the Scots leaked 29 points in the second-half and thought the sky had fallen in; against the Springboks, it was a mind-blowing 54. South Africa, unrecognisable from the side chewed up by the Lions, ruthlessly exploited the increasing gaps just as they had against France at Parc des Princes. Their back three of Percy Montgomery, James Small and Pieter Rossouw shared five tries and must now be ranked alongside Christian Cullen, Jeff Wilson and Jonah Lomu.
Montgomery's 26-point haul, including two glittering tries and eight left-footed conversions, prompted a battered Rob Wainwright to hail the Western Province flier's performance as the best he had ever seen by a full-back.
The Springboks, in the words of their coach Nick Mallett, "exceeded all our expectations" on their tour of Europe. They have amassed an extraordinary 35 tries in five Tests, but few gave so much communal pleasure as Small's second touchdown, generously gift-wrapped by Montgomery, which took him past Danie Gerber's all-time Springbok record of 19.
"Percy is going to score a lot of tries in his life. I don't know how long I can keep up with him," grinned Small. "He said before the match that if he got the opportunity to help me, he'd do it. I think that is indicative of the spirit in the team. I don't think any side could have stopped us.
"Derek Stark told me afterwards he felt like he was dodging bullets. Scotland made it hard early on but, if they had thought about it a little more, they could have put the nail in deeper than they did."
Small may have played almost twice as many Tests as Gerber, but has travelled a long, bumpy road from South Africa's earliest post-isolation days. Finally, despite the night-club brawls and underwear commercials, his place in the pantheon is secure. "If there's a player in South Africa who deserves it, it's him," acknowledged the captain, Gary Teichmann, part of a back-row who also managed a try apiece.
The only discordant note for Small and co was that pre-season training back home starts on January 10th. Before that comes a ski trip to Austria, paid for by Western Province. Hoping for lots of snow, James? "I don't care as long as they've got plenty of alcohol."
For Scotland, a bleak midwinter on the nursery slopes looms large.
Scotland: R Shepherd (Melrose); C Joiner (Leicester), A Stanger (Hawick), C Chalmers (Melrose), D Stark (Glasgow Hawks); G Townsend (Northampton), A Nicol (Bath), D Hilton (Bath), G Bulloch (West of Scotland), M Stewart (Northampton), S Campbell (Dundee HSFP), S Murray (Bedford), R Wainwright (Dundee HSFP, capt), I Smith (Moseley), E Peters (Bath). Temporary Replacements: D Hodge (Watsonians) for Stanger, 21-29 mins. Replacements: Hodge for Chalmers, 51 mins; G Armstrong (Newcastle Falcons) for Nichol, 64 mins; G Graham (Newcastle Falcons) for Hilton, 73 mins; P Walton (Newcastle Falcons) for Peters, 73 mins.
South Afria : P. Montgomery ( Western Province); J Small (Western Province), A Snyman (Northern Transvaal), D Muir (Western Province), P Rossouw (Western Province); J De Beer (Free State), W Swanepoel (Free State); O Du Randt (Free State), J Dalton (Gauteng Lions), A Garvey (Natal), K Otto (Northern Transvaal), M Andrews (Natal), J Erasmus (Free State), A Venter (Free State), G Teichmann (Natal, capt). Replacements: F Smith (Griqualand West), 34 mins; W Meyer (Free State) for Du Randt, 72 mins; J Swart (Western Province) for Small, 72 mins.
Referee: Patrick Thomas (France).
