IF there is one thing worse than simply losing a match, it is suffering a defeat and losing a couple of your players into the bargain. There is no doubt that the injuries sustained against France which have ruled Greig Laidlaw and Josh Strauss out of the rest of the Six Nations Championship have come as a serious blow to the Scotland squad, with the loss of Laidlaw being doubly problematic as he was captain in addition to holding down a starting place.

After a weekend in which both Edinburgh and Glasgow lost in the PRO12, having fielded teams which were without most of their internationals, the absence of Laidlaw from Saturday’s game against Wales and the two to follow against England and Italy has further highlighted one of Scottish rugby’s most intractable problems: the lack of strength in depth. The availability of Ryan Wilson this weekend after illness should mitigate the loss of Strauss, and the back row is in any case one of the most competitive areas of the national team, but there is no easy way to compensate for Laidlaw’s dual role.

Yes, there are other scrum-halves: Ali Price and Henry Pyrgos will be in the squad to face the Welsh, and both have contrasting virtues to Laidlaw as No 9s. Yes again, there are other players who can captain Scotland: John Barclay and Jonny Gray did so for a time against the French, Pyrgos and Ross Ford have taken charge before, and other members of the squad have good leadership qualities.

But none of them has Laidlaw’s experience in the role, not to mention his drive, determination and wisdom. And Pyrgos, the only man who could combine the two functions, is not long back from injury and by no means assured of being named in the starting line-up.

The squad has matured a lot over the last couple of seasons, and the number of players capable of taking real responsibility for setting the tone on the field has increased. But when it comes to leadership, perhaps the most notable improvement has come in the ability of the rest of the squad to follow Laidlaw’s lead, rather than in the capacity of any one individual to deputise for him precisely.

In the 2015 Rugby World Cup game against Samoa, Laidlaw took the game by the scruff of the neck, coaxing just enough out of his team-mates to ensure victory. Contrast that with the collective self-discipline and belief shown by the squad in the closing stages against Ireland, and it should be clear that there is a more unified sense of purpose now than there was 18 months ago.

Even so, that improvement was with Laidlaw on the field. In Paris, faced with a similar game situation to Ireland - trailing narrowly with time running out - Scotland without their talisman did not look nearly so composed. And of course, in the win against the Irish, Laidlaw did not only dictate the shape and strategy, he also kicked the two late penalties that won the game.

Barclay’s experience - and perhaps also his greater acquaintance, as a Scarlets player, with the Welsh squad - makes him the best successor to Laidlaw, at least for this match. But you get the feeling that it will take a lot longer than the remaining three games of this competition for him or anyone else to come close to really performing Laidlaw’s role with identical aplomb.

And another thing . . .

Once Richard Cockerill is settled in as head coach of Edinburgh Rugby next season, he could do worse than take a trip down to Easter Road to meet Neil Lennon. The Hibernian manager might not be able to teach the former England hooker anything about the intricacies of the scrum, but he could have some pertinent advice on how to deal with a longstanding cultural malaise within a club.

Hibs, like Edinburgh, had been adrift for some time. You would say they lacked direction, only that would not be strictly true, because they did in fact have one: downwards, from the Premiership to the Championship, where they are currently seven points clear in the race for the one automatic promotion place.

No matter the outcome of their Scottish Cup replay against Hearts this evening, Hibs finally appear to have got back on course in terms of the league. And, while Lennon deserves much of the credit for giving them a harder edge, his predecessor Alan Stubbs, under whom the club won the cup last season, set the ball rolling.

So Cockerill might want to have a word with Stubbs as well. And while he’s at it, why not pop in on Terry Butcher? Like Cockerill, Butcher was seen as a man of experience who would brook no nonsense, and to whom the players would look up. Instead, he and his assistant Maurice Malpas only appeared to exacerbate the problems at Easter Road, and relegation resulted.

The chronic and complex problems at Hibs may not have been identical to those at Edinburgh, but judged from the outside there are definitely certain similarities. An awareness of those similarities could help Cockerill get to grips quickly with the demands of his new post.