Scotland: Well-earned relief after win over Samoa at World Cup
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Best moments as Scotland beat Samoa at Rugby World Cup
In the oppressive humidity of Kobe's Misaki Stadium on Monday, Scotland may have struggled to catch their breath but they did at least hold their nerve on a potentially suffocating night for their World Cup aspirations.
That gasping you saw at the end wasn't so much players looking for air as Scots panting in relief that a good night's work had the ultimate reward of a fourth try and the extra point that came with it - an absolute necessity if they were to hold out hope of making it through to a quarter-final showdown with Japan in Yokohama in little under a fortnight.
This pool has a way to run. Scotland are still underdogs to make it to the last eight, as head coach Gregor Townsend pointed out in the aftermath.
That view might not chime with the bookmakers, who all seem to think that Townsend's team will beat Japan and go through, but it's rooted in the reality of what we have seen over the past few days. Ireland blitzed Scotland, Japan beat Ireland. The Scots are behind the pair with what should be a straightforward five-pointer game against Russia and that howitzer against Japan to come.
Nobody who has watched this team in recent years will be counting chickens. Surely everybody is too battle-hardened by now. Just as Scotland can follow bad performances with good ones, then the reverse is also true.
This was only the first time in 29 Tests in charge that Townsend's team managed to keep an opponent from scoring a try and the first time they've managed to keep an opponent to zero points, but they're still searching for the kind of consistency that makes them trustworthy as a team.
They will get the job done against Russia and they can, on their very best form, back it up with victory over Japan - who seem to have taken on the status of the All Blacks on the basis of one admittedly seismic performance over an Ireland side that has lost its way.
Japan were intense and accurate and thunderous. They were at fever pitch. Can they get back up to that emotional high a second time? That's questionable. Will they even need to in order to put Scotland away? It depends on which version of Scotland turns up on the day. It's really hard to say.
Sean Maitland scored Scotland's opening try
Strong start and aggression boosts Scots
What Scotland achieved in Kobe was a lifeline. The work they have to do might still prove beyond them if they throw in another dud performance, but in taking five deserved points from Samoa, they've kept themselves in the hunt even if they left it until the 75th minute to do it.
The drama in those moments was acute. They'd coughed up a few chances beforehand and time was running out. A colossal Samoan error gave Scotland the chance to escape their own 22 and when they did they showed coolness in the Misaki sauna.
Pascal Gauzere had a decision to make with the decisive moment but he made the right one. Penalty try and liberation for the Scots.
That was an impressive passage of play by them. In the circumstances, with their entire World Cup on the line and with only five minutes left to save it, the action leading up to that second penalty try was hugely impressive.
They'll need to improve again, but there were many things to be cheerful about. A strong start, for one. An aggression from the beginning with some statement-making tackles from Grant Gilchrist and Magnus Bradbury in the opening seconds, not the soak tackles that we've seen quite enough of, not the passive tackles that only encourage opponents. These were the real deal. Nowadays they're called dominant hits, but whatever term you want to give them, they drove Samoa back and won an early psychological battle. There was a badness about Scotland's pack in those key moments.
Samoa offered little or nothing beyond a defence that held for long parts before it eventually cracked under the weight of Scottish attacks.
The response to this victory has to be tempered by the knowledge that Japan lie in wait in the final group game. Japan are no Samoa, but at least the five-pointer gives Scotland some momentum on the road back to Yokohama and that likely classic against the host nation on 13 October.
The infuriating thing is that too often Scotland have to go through misery to get to respectability. There is no consistency, no smooth progression. There is a violent lurching from low to high and back again.
They're now on an even-ish keel after this victory but they need to drive on with the same intensity, the same work-rate, the same anger. Bottle the humiliation they felt after Ireland and take a sip every now and then.
They'll be driving on with a new back row. Gregor Townsend gave Bradbury, Jamie Ritchie and Blade Thomson a chance to form a formidable unit and they repaid him with more carrying and more urgency than Samoa could cope with.
Scotland have been crying out for more steel with ball in hand and these three provided it. They were busy and they made things happen.
Thomson impressed for Scotland in Kobe
They're the incumbents now; John Barclay and Ryan Wilson are the back-up. Chris Harris also made his case in a serious way. Harris was direct and influential. It was Samoa he was playing, not Ireland or Japan, but if Test rugby is all about taking a chance when it's offered, then Harris and his hard running took it.
The conditions were brutal. Under a closed roof, the temperature must have been pushing 30 degrees with the humidity somewhere north of 80%. Some of the Scottish fans did at times resemble the Ted Striker character from the movie Airplane! Just as the sweat poured out of poor Ted as he tried to control a jet in trouble - in the scene that created a popular GIF - so it pumped out of everybody stuck in the airless world of the Misaki.
"The most difficult conditions I ever played in was in Houston, Texas," said Greig Laidlaw, of a Test in 2014. "But this was probably the second most difficult. It was incredibly hard to hold on to the ball, but we did it well enough and we're still alive."
World Rugby made the decision to close the roof for all games at the Misaki, presumably to cut off at the pass any rows between one country who might want it open and another who might want it shut.
The upshot is that when England played the United States there last week, there were 41 turnovers in the match, most of them due to players dropping a ball that had taken on the slippiness of a wet bar of soap.
On Monday, the turnover count was 34. Twenty of those belonged to Scotland. That's 75 turnovers in two games under the roof with one more pool game remaining - Ireland against Russia on Thursday. Anybody who thinks that closing the roof was a good idea should be forced to sit through the knock-on highlights once the Misaki has hosted its final game.
Scotland will be sitting through a tape of an altogether more positive performance compared to the horror show they had to pore over last week. Smiles have returned. A burden has been lifted. They have given themselves a chance.