Tonga demons exorcised, says Scotland coach Vern Cotter

Scotland's Sean Lamont (left) and Chris Cusiter celebrate their win over Tonga.

Scotland head coach Vern Cotter hailed his side's work-rate as they defeated Tonga 37-12 at Kilmarnock's Rugby Park to end the autumn series on a high.

The Scots avenged a loss on home soil to Tonga two years ago with 23 unanswered second-half points.

"This is a monkey off our back game so we've got that away for the guys that were there two years ago," Cotter told BBC Scotland.

"We can now can prepare and think about the Six Nations in two months' time."

The victory rounds off a successful series for Scotland, which also featured a win against Argentina before running New Zealand close at Murrayfield.

The Scots had lost to Tonga in 2012, a defeat which led to head coach Andy Robinson's resignation.

But, in the first international played on an artificial pitch, tries from Blair Cowan, Stuart Hogg, Alex Dunbar, Geoff Cross and Tommy Seymour gave the Scots a comfortable win.

"Today was a tough game," said Cotter.

"We had to sit through a fair bit of pressure in the first 30 minutes and the guys came out in the second half and did simple things well, finally got on top, and ground out a win I think is very important for this group moving forward.

"I'm really pleased we've got ambition to play. We had a few errors in our game, but in the second half we took them out and we carried more directly and varied our play more.

"Our line-out was outstanding. The backs were looking good and getting over the advantage line.

"My players and staff work very hard and it's nice to come away with a win.

"The key to this is making sure we move forward because this is good but we need to get better.

"There's guys that will go back to their clubs with things to improve and I'm sure when they come back together we'll try and do better than what we did."