Memories seem to be playing tricks as the knives come out for Hadden

Published on Friday 27 February 2009 21:11

SCOTLAND ought to beat Italy this afternoon and I believe they will. The performance in Paris was a considerable improvement on the Welsh match, and the return of Euan Murray will strengthen the pack. It may not be a pretty game. Italy have the ability to make their opponents look poor, Ireland for instance appearing very second-rate for long periods in Rome a fortnight ago; but still we should come out on top.

Preparation will not have been made easier by renewed speculation about Frank Hadden's future as coach. Gavin Hastings fuelled this a couple of days ago. Well, he has a right to his opinion, but with three matches in the championship still to come, might have kept it to himself.

Hastings remains a generally much admired figure , having been a member of two very good Scotland sides– the 1986-7 one captained by Colin Deans, and David Sole's 1990-91 team. Many of us also retain a vivid and happy picture of Hastings storming through on Gregor Townsend's famous 'Toony flip' to score under the posts at Parc des Princes and secure our first victory in Paris for 26 years. He contributed so much to Scottish rugby that it's natural for him to be disappointed by recent results.

On the other hand he was fortunate in the time he played. Throughout his international career (1986-95) Ireland were consistently poor, there for the taking. Wales were also in the doldrums, weakened by the defection to Rugby League of some of their best players – Terry Holmes, Jonathan Davies, Alan Bateman, Scott Gibbs and the Quinnell brothers among them. In contrast in the last few years Ireland have had their best team since the 1940s and have won three Triple Crowns, while Wales have collected two Grand Slams.

Memory plays tricks and it's easy to forget that there were spells in Hastings's playing career at least as unsuccessful as the last years have been; matches too, like that 51-15 drubbing by the All Blacks at Murrayfield which one would rather not remember. When Hastings's team was beaten 39-10 by South Africa in November 1994, that was Scotland's ninth match in succession without a win. So all wasn't joy and glory in these days.

One might add that between 1986 and 1995 we beat England only twice while Hadden's much criticised sides have won two of the last three Calcutta Cup matches. Admittedly England were very strong throughout the Nineties and have been comparatively weak since the 2003 World Cup. But then they weren't all that good in the Eighties when we lost two dismal games ('87 at Twickenham and '88 at Murrayfield), both of which we should have won.

One may reasonably criticise some of Hadden's selections against Wales and France, and, even if he deferred in the composition of the pack to the forwards' coach, Mike Brewer, he must, as the head man, accept responsibility for such mistakes. However, as Mike Blair said with characteristic good sense this week, it's not coaches but players who drop passes or concede penalties. It's the players who are responsible for mistakes on the field.

Hadden's critics would be on stronger ground if our only two professional teams, Edinburgh and Glasgow, were up at the top of the Magners League and had qualified for the knock-out stages of the Heineken Cup. But, despite some good results, this isn't the case. They're both in mid-table in the Magners and out of the Heineken. So one can't argue that the performance and results of the national team don't reflect those of the pro teams. In reality, they're on a par with them.

In contrast, Munster, Leinster, Cardiff Blues and Ospreys are all in the Heineken quarter-finals. It may well be that Hadden has achieved as much as anyone might with the material at his disposal, especially since injury has deprived him of Rory Lamont, Euan Murray and Nathan Hines – all candidates for Lions selection – for the first two matches of this campaign. Now, when one of the front five that played so well in the autumn returns, another, Jim Hamilton, misses today's match.

Like many I am sometimes irritated by Hadden's repeated complaints about lack of preparation time, his readiness to fall back on self-justifying statistics, and his insistence that this is a young team in the course of development (whereas it is actually a pretty experienced one now). Yet I doubt if he can be held responsible for our comparatively poor results. Set aside the lamentable reign of Matt Williams, and you will still find that our record in the Hadden years is much the same as it was in Ian McGeechan's second spell as the Scottish coach (2000-2003); and McGeechan is one of the most respected and highly- rated coaches of the last 20 years.

The fault lies not in the men, but in the SRU's failure to adapt as well as other countries to the demands of professionalism, and its consequent inability to establish a sound base for professional rugby here in Scotland.

If we don't win two of the remaining three matches in the championship, then I daresay Hadden will either choose, or be asked, to go. Dismissing him if we should lose today would be pointless, as Tom Smith has sensibly observed. A temporary head coach would then have to be appointed while the other members of the coaching staff would presumably remain in place. That might of course give a brief lift, which would serve only to confuse matters.

In any case I don't think it will happen. I'm confident we shall win today and then beat either Ireland or England, perhaps even both.