Former Scotland coach Frank Hadden reckons Vern Cotter will deserve more credit than criticism if he follows Twickenham embarrassm

Eleven years have elapsed since Frank Hadden became the only Scotland coach so far to oversee more wins than defeats in a Six Nations, but he has become used to the New Zealander removing his claims to fame.

“He has stopped me being able to claim to be the last coach to beat France, the last one to get to the knockout stages of the World Cup and the last one to beat Wales,” laughed Hadden.

“Mind you he also got rid of people being able to point out that I was the last one to lose to Italy at home. That was pretty decent of him and hopefully it will mean I get rather fewer calls this week reminding me about the 2007 game against them.”

In reality that was the only one of those claims he would been prepared to have been stuck with because Hadden is a passionate Scotland supporter who is still heavily involved in trying to address the issues that have for too long afflicted both attempts to develop homegrown players and the domestic club game.

Last weekend’s efforts also served to remind us of just how much of an achievement he managed in beating England twice in the space of three years and he can still claim to be the last Scotland coach to win the Calcutta Cup, while Hadden also evaded the ignominy of all three of the full-time imported coaches who preceded and succeeded him in the post since Matt Williams, Andy Robinson and Cotter have all subjected us to ‘whitewash’ campaigns.

It is further to his credit that he readily acknowledges an element of good fortune in that 2006 success, particularly when one of the great rear-guard actions defied a superior England team, but time has offered perspective.

Not only did Scotland win those three matches against France, England and Italy, but they only lost by five kicks to three in a try-less encounter in Dublin to an Ireland team that was beaten only by France - who won all four matches to take the title after their opening day loss at Murrayfield - while the defeat to Wales in the Millennium Stadium was suffered only after an uncharacteristic moment of madness from Scott Murray saw him red carded just 15 minutes in.

Those who believe they understand what coaching is all about but have yet to acknowledge just how much credit Hadden has long deserved might want to reflect upon that defeat, too, in light of what happened last weekend.

Scotland lost 28-18 away from home that day, after readjusting to having to play with 14 men for most of the game against a team that had won a Grand Slam the previous year. Compare and contrast with the way the team fell apart in losing 61-21 away from home last week after being reduced to 14 men for 10 minutes against a team that similarly won a Grand Slam the previous season.

Hadden prefers, however, to focus on the successes, both past and present and believes Cotter deserves considerable credit.

“I think three wins is a really good effort for us, although at the time it didn’t feel good because I wanted to win the championship,” he says of 2006.

“However three wins this time around would give them a real platform for the future.”

In saying so he believes that, for all that they will have to adjust to a new management set up at an inopportune moment, just as confidence in the methods they were pursuing was growing, the current squad is better equipped than was the case a decade ago.

Back then the Edinburgh-based Dundonian was working with a squad that was literally lightweight, to the extent that he had to spend most of the summer of 2007 bulking them up rather than working on skills and drills ahead of a World Cup and had too many key players operating outside of Scotland.

“Scottish rugby has been playing catch up since the game went professional and the other countries that traditionally had trouble harnessing their resources began to do so and you can close the gap but you’ll never go beyond the teams with much bigger resources,” he points out in a tone that is matter-of-fact rather than in any way defeatist.

“You don’t always have the depth you would like, but right now we have depth in every position except prop. Losing (WP) Nel was a blow this season, but even there Zander Fagerson looks set to develop into a very good player.

“Slowly but surely their skillsets have improved and if you want to break it down to its most basic, you could almost say that the main reason we’re doing better is that we’ve stopped dropping the ball as much.”

As he reflects on Cotter’s overall time in charge, then, Hadden is generous in his assessment of the man he expects to complete a winning season today.

“I think when he started he had the usual problems associated with coaches coming into Scotland from elsewhere in that it took him a while to work out what his best team is and that contributed to the indignity of a whitewash in the championship two years ago,” he noted.

“However I think they’ve done well since then and there is no doubt that the World Cup was important because I’m sure he’s frustrated by the lack of time they have with the players and World Cups always gives you a chance to develop them in a way you can’t otherwise.”

Having also had to hold things together as national coach when the SRU haplessly experimented with franchising the professional game by selling off briefly Edinburgh’s professional team, he is worried that the current regime is looking at going down that road again.

“Alarm bells started ringing for me when I heard that,” Hadden admitted.

“We don’t need to keep all of our leading players in this country, but it is vital that we have control of as many of them as possible.

“I can remember on one occasion when our next match in the championship was against Ireland and we knew that they had 36 players training together. We had eight, enough for a four-a-side game of touch rugby.”

In saying so he notes that England pay their clubs around £100,000 each to get the access they need to their players. The implications are obvious.

That, though, is for the post-Cotter era and as he anticipates the completion of Scottish rugby’s second winning season in the Six Nations, Hadden advises that there are lessons to be learned both from his time and Cotter’s.

“Last week’s match was a reminder of what can happen if we get off to a bad start,” he observed. “Even apart from those Calcutta Cup wins my teams had a fair bit of success against England at age grade and I knew from then that the key was to get off to a good start. We were a bit fortunate to beat them in 2006, but in 2008 we thoroughly deserved our win and that was off a good start.

“The same applies against the Italians, particularly this time around. Our players will have lost a bit of the confidence they had been building and that can be compounded if we get off to a bad start which will let Italy into the game. Don’t get me wrong, I think we can win a dog-fight if we have to, but it will be much better on the day and moving forward if we can get on top early we can register a good win against Italy.”

The temptation to take those observations as a cue to remind him of the events of that 2007 encounter with the Italians is obviously too much.

“It could have been very different if some of those passes had gone to hand,” he good-naturedly protests of an occasion on which everything that could have gone wrong did for half-backs Chris Cusiter and Phil Godman in the opening exchanges.

"We were probably a bit over ambitious… I accept that,” he adds ruefully.

Not that he would ever want his message to be misinterpreted as advocating any lack of ambition.

However Hadden knows better than anyone why it has to be tempered in terms of the resources available.