Gary Armstrong: 'Withhold pay if Scots fail to play'

Armstrong himself endured some deflating international performances, but the man who led Scotland to their last championship title in 1999 was stunned by the nature of the defeat in his country's first match of the 2009 RBS Six Nations Championship.

The Borderer spoke at a pre-match luncheon on Sunday in Edinburgh, but was away quick enough to be at home in Jedburgh within minutes of the kick-off only to be as turned off by the rugby on show as most Scottish supporters.

"I could have been at Murrayfield, but lots of people want to talk to you and I don't want to be rude," he explained. "I want to watch every minute of the game, but it wasn't worth it on Sunday was it? I wonder whether Frank Hadden can still motivate them; I wonder about the selections, or non-selections of form players; and whether the ruthlessness you need at that level on and off the park is there right now.

"If they need a 'fear factor' to play, I'd tell them that they won't get any wages this month if the performances don't improve. I really would."

Armstrong believes senior players should be taking more responsibility, and reckons that the players have the ability to perform at a much higher level – and should not be finding themselves playing second fiddle to a capable but not brilliant Welsh side.

"The forwards didn't front up; the Welsh pack put them where they wanted in the scrum," he said. "I have been impressed with Jim Hamilton, but you didn't see him on Sunday. You need the leaders to step up and they didn't at the weekend.

"It's hard to comment without knowing what's going on behind the scenes, but Wales are not that much better a side than us, and they didn't have to play brilliantly to beat us on Sunday. But you look at the Welsh coaches – Warren Gatland takes no prisoners and Shaun Edwards is a Rottweiler. They have made sure there are no big egos, no stars dictating things, and you can see they are really playing for each other as a whole squad.

"The coaches make the calls and they've got to be thinking about Thom and Max Evans this week, while big Jason (White] was not a success at second row either, but the players have to look at themselves and ask why they can perform with some promise in November, and do reasonably well in Europe, and then not turn up?

"They have to be brutally honest – they looked like they were going through the motions on Sunday. If anyone says they gave 100 per cent, then they're lying."

He was not alone with his criticism yesterday, with Jim Telfer, the former Scotland coach, taking issue with the selection and insisted that Alastair Kellock would have been better at lock than a player – White – not match-fit. He believes that Kelly Brown, the Glasgow flanker, or Alasdair Strokosch of Gloucester, would offer more in the back row and agreed that the Evans brothers should be in to face France.

Like Telfer, Armstrong speaks as he played, with his heart on his sleeve, and he acknowledged that he did not always get it right either. And while he and Telfer remember fondly the success of 1999, the scrum-half admitted that he came off some Test matches feeling he had not given 100 per cent – like many of the current squad must be this week.

"There were times I was absolutely gutted for days," he added. "In my first game against France, Pierre Berbizier took the mickey out of me in the Parc des Princes and when we came off he wouldn't even shake my hand. I was totally gutted because I knew I'd let everyone down.

"But you learn from that and when I went in against him again I gave him back some of his own medicine – stood on his toes, pulled his shirt, battered him in the tackle, just got stuck into him – and he came across at the end of the game and shook my hand. I had earned his respect.

"As a Scotland international you probably have to work harder to earn respect. We won't have had Wales' respect and we won't have anybody's after that game. The only way to change that is to be honest and ruthless with each other about their failures.

"When I started off I had Fin Calder and JJ on my back all the time, but they made me the player I was by giving me a hard time when I was slightly off my game. We need that honesty and hard talking from senior players."

There is concern that head coach Frank Hadden is struggling to move the team forward. His future looked uncertain until the second Test win against Argentina in the summer, and seemed to make headway against South Africa in the autumn, even though a winnable match was lost. Armstrong now wonders if Hadden's time is up.

"It's not his fault he is missing Euan Murray, Nathan Hines and Rory Lamont, or that he still doesn't have a stand-off to control a game, or that the pack didn't turn up on Sunday, but you have to get on with it and I wonder if the players have been under him too long now.

"I remember feeling stale in 1998, and then Jim Telfer came back and the new voice made a big difference. The SRU thought about it last year, but got rid of the assistants and kept Hadden. It's not the assistants but the head coach who makes the big calls; it's him that's sets the tone. Is he capable of being ruthless now? We need it."

On how Scotland might pick things up on Saturday in the daunting arena of the Stade de France, Armstrong said: "I was listening to old boys at the weekend saying there was no space and everybody was more concerned with defence than attack, and that's bang on. When we played with some ambition, turned the focus on attack in the autumn, and in the last ten minutes against Wales, we looked like a team.

"France and Ireland were running it from everywhere on Saturday, had a spring in their step, and it was a tremendous game to watch. That's what we've got to get back to in Paris. The coaches have to be ruthless and the players have to find the desire to put it right from within. They have the quality."