Opportunity lost for try-shy Scotland in Six Nations

TWO points on the scoreboard prevented Scotland from sinking to a second successive wooden spoon for the first time since the 1970s, and yet it was the dire lack of points that made the 2008 RBS Six Nations Championship a miserable one for Scotland.

This was a tournament as a whole that had great excitement and the unpredictability that comes with all sides being capable of matching each other on their day, but Scotland failed to rise to the challenge and their one victory against England does little now to dampen the strong disappointment felt by supporters after a spring that promised much more.

Frank Hadden, the Scotland coach, was only two months ago urging people to aim for the top – he had the fittest Scotland squad, rising talents, newfound experience and maturity from the World Cup and a squad with more depth than he could remember at this level; depth to cover injuries that is. This correspondent believed that, and still believes it has been the case, and felt, with the frustration of not beating Argentina and reaching a World Cup semi-final, they may also possess the crucial desire to upset the odds.

On Saturday night in Rome, Hadden blamed preparation at that time, weather, illness and injuries before and during the championship for the poor run. This suggests the depth either was not as strong as he had believed or, perhaps, that he did not tap into it efficiently.

After an RBS Six Nations in which his squad has brought him just one win, taking his tally in three years to five in 15 Test matches, two in the last ten, Hadden and his rallying faithful are keen to suggest that we set our expectations too high; that these players are not great, pretty limited really, and almost that he is doing well to achieve the results he has.

But while few view this squad as deserving of a top-five place in world rugby, it is far from being poor. Scotland currently has a burgeoning stock of players able to compete with the best in Europe at least, around some experienced individuals such as Mike Blair, the new captain, Simon Taylor and Nathan Hines who have proven themselves competitive with the best in the world. Newcomers such as John Barclay, Strokosch and Graeme Morrison have proven themselves good Test performers, Nikki Walker shown improvement on his return and the A team proven that there are more talents on the way.

This squad enjoyed the most in-depth pre-season training programme ever embarked upon, with unprecedented technical help from medics, physios and the Institute of Sport, and Scotland's top 40 or so players under the direction of Hadden and Mark Bitcon, the fitness coach, are significantly more powerful and physically competitive than any that have gone before.

In this tournament, Scotland's scrum started poorly against France and finished under pressure in Italy, but competed well in the other three games and, though it made for scrappy ball often, they never lost any of their own scrum ball, unlike France, Italy and England. Scotland's lineout supplied more ball than any other team, and while it lost more than the locks will like, it was reasonably sound throughout the championship.

Only Italy conceded fewer penalties, only Ireland secured more ball from mauls, only Wales won more ball in the opposition 22 and they and France were the only teams to make more passes than Scotland overall, yet all sides managed to turn that possession into more tries than Hadden's paltry three – Scotland's smallest-ever total in the Six Nations – and that was the key problem.

The number of errors was a contributory factor as only France and Wales missed more tackles, Scotland had the least success at winning turnovers and only the French, who changed their team with each game, made more mistakes. But, Scotland's attack – the one part of their game that failed to lift pressure off others – was the big failure of the 2008 championship.

Hadden was an ambitious, adventurous coach, but he has become ever-more conservative in the past year, almost frozen by what he faced in his second year at the helm and appears to lack the tactical answers to pull the team forward. He had a chance, with a championship title long gone, to find a new way with Paterson at ten – the greatest frustration being that none of us yet know whether he could provide the answer to Scotland's try drought – but his instinct was neither to look to the future, nor be bold nor ambitious.

This is not about finding scapegoats for Scotland's struggles, nor witch-hunts and personal attacks on individuals, but simply an assessment and questioning of how and where Scotland are developing and improving. The team has a record of 13 wins in 31 Test matches under the current head coach, but have struggled to show any meaningful improvement over the past year. This time last year the message was 'don't worry about the Six Nations, the World Cup is the real aim in 2007' and after that it was 'we have learned lessons to help us compete in the Six Nations'.

In fact, Scotland finished bottom of the scoring charts, bottom of the try charts, in a Six Nations in which no team, even Grand Slam winners Wales, were head and shoulders above them. This was a great championship in the sense that it was wide open, every game was there for the taking by the team with the greater desire and execution of skills on the day, but Scotland could not play their part.

On the issue of tactics, Hadden began with the kicking style of the World Cup with Dan Parks at stand-off, but the forward pack struggled to provide ball, and when the stream of possession was improved against Wales, Scotland tried to batter them into submission around the ruck and in tight channels, which led Warren Gatland, the Wales coach, to say afterwards that Scotland were easy to defend against.

Paterson was handed the stand-off reins against Ireland, and he helped spark a much more ambitious attack, but it still struggled to finish and the Irish easily picked off errors and turnovers to score five tries. Simon Webster did finally produce a Scottish try, but the game quickly slid away from the Scots. The following week brought the announcement of Scott MacLeod's failed drugs test, an unwelcome distraction.

Had Paterson continued in the final two games perhaps that early enterprise might have grown into something, but when the team lost Rory Lamont to injury 20 minutes into the Calcutta Cup match, Paterson was moved back to wing. The side stepped up to the mark defensively, Parks worked hard and, despite some errors from the Glasgow fly-half, Scotland sealed a famous win. But when Nikki Walker was injured in training two days before the Italy match, Paterson was again moved out of the ten jersey and to the wing, and Parks never had the wit, confidence or form to steer the Scottish side to victory.

It is for Hadden and his coaching staff to work out where the national team are heading, and while he still has the support and faith of his players, he may survive to lead the team against Argentina and then, in the autumn, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. Not an easy run in which to prove you do have what it takes to lift Scottish rugby again, but if he does strike more wins than defeats in that run he may well turn things around.

All Scotland coaches suffer difficult times – or should that be most coaches enjoy a brief flirt with successful runs? – but there remains doubts as to whether Hadden has the answers. When media and supporters said that his side was poor against France, he was upset and said the press were over-critical. On Saturday night, he could not lay on how poor he thought the performance was in that opening match any thicker had he used a trowel. This helps him suggest progress from that first game. Some bizarre bounces and terrible refereeing decisions did lead to tries conceded by Scotland, but bad luck will always be a problem to a side that cannot score tries.

The next World Cup is three years away, but with the draw in December of this year Scotland must suddenly beat one, possibly two of the world's top three – Argentina, South Africa or New Zealand – to secure a top eight seeding in the 2011 tournament.

Hadden deserved all the credit he received for re-energising the Scotland team in his first two years and taking them to a World Cup quarter-final, but his side missed an opportunity to reach the last four and have now missed the rather unambitious first target set for the Six Nations, of two wins from five. These are stark facts. The 2008 tournament has only created more doubts about the direction in which Scotland's national team is headed.