Tom English: 'Messing with the key position is a clear sign Hadden is out of ideas'

SCOTLAND PLAYED Argentina in Buenos Aires last night? Were you watching on the web? Were you listening on the radio? Or have you been so ground down by the failures and the excuse-making of recent seasons that you're, well, not past caring exactly, but not as passionate as you used to be?

There's a lot of disaffected Scottish rugby supporters out there. I bet there are some that were hoping for a Pumas victory at Velez Sarsfield, not out of disloyalty to their country but out of desperation. In the past, one-off victories, or moral victories, have papered over many cracks and have delayed or stopped revolution taking place. This column is being written ahead of the Test for a specific reason. Win or lose, it doesn't matter. It doesn't. In the big picture, in a game between two sides dramatically weakened by injury and the vagaries of the French domestic season, whatever happened is an irrelevancy.

What is deeply relevant, though, is Frank Hadden and his continuing failure to get the best out of his players. Scotland have won two games out of their last 10 in the championship. That's one better than Matt Williams managed. They have scored four tries in their last nine Tests, not counting last night. This is pathetic, as everyone knows. It is also unrepresentative of the quality of the individual talent at Hadden's disposal. Nobody is saying they'd be championship winners in another man's hands but they wouldn't be the dregs of Europe, they wouldn't be going to Cardiff and embarrassing themselves, they wouldn't be confused by bizarre gameplans and selections week in, week out.

Gordon McKie, the SRU chief executive, must be looking for certainty in his staff. Without the knowledge that they know what they're doing, how can he have any confidence in them? Is he getting it from Hadden? Let's put to one side the defeats, the lack of tries and the flagging interest of the supporters. Hell of a job, admittedly, but let's just look at Chris Paterson and Dan Parks for a minute. How McKie can see how the fly-half slot has been tossed about between them and conclude that Hadden still knows what he's doing beggars belief.

Here's how Paterson has been used. At the World Cup he was a sub against Portugal (and came on at 10), was on the wing against Romania, at 10 against the All Blacks and back on the wing against Italy and Argentina. In the Six Nations, he was on the bench against France (and came on at 10), was selected at full-back against Wales but was moved to the wing, started at 10 against Ireland and finished at 15, started at 10 against England and was moved to the wing, selected at 10 against Italy and moved to the wing.

Parks was lamentably awful against the Italians and gifted them the game yet he kept the 10 jersey for the first Test in Argentina last week, with Paterson playing full-back. Last night Phil Godman played fly-half and Paterson was shifted to the wing. This is bonkers. Utterly insane. Messing about with the key position of fly-half is a clear sign that Hadden is out of ideas. He's moving things around in the mad hope that something will work yet there is no clear vision, no logic, no consistency.

What happens is that at times, things work but the occasional victories merely serve to show the raw capabilities of his team, particularly up front and in the sustained excellence of Mike Blair. They are nowhere as bad as performances would indicate. It's for that reason that the Scotland gig would be an attractive one to a prospective coach.

This is the perfect time for a new guy to take over. Morale is low, results are bad. Ideal. Any small improvement and you're in credit with the supporters. But there is a lot of improvement in this squad, it is just a question of getting the right man in there to bring it out of them. That man is not Frank Hadden. It may be Andy Robinson, but it's not at all clear that he wants the job. From his utterances so far, he'd rather continue at Edinburgh for the foreseeable future. That makes sense, for him and for McKie. The chief executive desperately needs his two pro teams firing on all cylinders and they're in good hands in Robinson and Lineen

Life after Frank? Here's a name. Eddie O'Sullivan. A serious rugby man, a strong character and a successful coach on the international scene. I doubt he'd play Hadden's preposterous game of musical chairs in the most important position on the field. No clear-thinking coach would. What do you say, Gordon?