Hadden remains optimistic

Frank Hadden insists it will take more than one poor performance to alter his opinion that Scotland can have a successful campaign in this year's Six Nations tournament.

Frank Hadden insists it will take more than one poor performance to alter his opinion that Scotland can have a successful campaign in this year's Six Nations tournament.

The Scots were well beaten by France at Murrayfield on Sunday but there has been little time to dwell on the 27-6 defeat.

Hadden's side are back in action against Wales on Saturday, and Chris Paterson returns to the starting XV in one of two changes. He replaces the injured Rory Lamont at full-back, while Kelly Brown steps in for the dropped Dave Callam at number eight.

But head coach Hadden resisted the temptation to make wholesale changes and insisted it was too soon in the championship to be making radical selections.

“We stand by the team we selected last week, although we were very disappointed with the performance – and we stand by the team we've picked this week,” said Hadden.

“You're always tempted to make changes after a defeat, but you talk about it rationally, have sensible discussions about this, that and the next thing, you look at everything in the minutest detail, and then make your decision.

“We've had a very honest debrief this week. It was very clear that the performance wasn't good enough last weekend and we'll have to make some progress on that during this Six Nations.

“We think this is the right team, the best team, and we feel we've made some sensible decisions. We're expecting an improved performance.

“We believed before we went into last week's game that we could win the game down in Wales and we still believe that to be the case.”

They head to the Millennium Stadium to face a side whose confidence will be soaring after Saturday's thrilling victory against World Cup finalists England at Twickenham.

Graeme Morrison and Allister Hogg have been added to the Scotland bench, while Paterson will be winning his 83rd cap, taking him past Gregor Townsend to become Scotland's most capped back of all time.

Lock Nathan Hines will be making his 50th appearance for Scotland having recovered from a calf injury sustained against the French.

“We're aware of the size of the challenge, and we're very aware of what we need to do to get the result this weekend,” said Hadden.

The Scotland coach accepted he had perhaps made a miscalculation last week by fielding too many players with a shortage of recent game time.

“There were eight people who hadn't played for three weeks, and on balance that was too many,” said Hadden.

“What do you do? Do you pick a player just because he's had more games than somebody else, even though you don't necessarily think he's the right guy?

“There are a lot of tough decisions to make, there's no doubt about that. Last weekend, we definitely didn't get the balance right.

“You'll always have this problem at international level.

“You'll get situations where you have some guys who have possibly played a touch too much through the heavy weather spell of November, December and January and come into the Six Nations a bit sluggish, and you've got others who haven't played enough – and it is very, very difficult to get that balance on the button.

“We possibly tired in the last 30 minutes and maybe that was the reason for some of the problems. I'm hoping with another match under their belts that we'll get a better performance this week.”

The set-piece was also identified by Hadden as an area in which Scotland must improve this week to stand a chance of defeating Wales, who roared back in the second half against England to achieve a famous victory in London.

“Rest assured that we've spent a lot of time this week working on the problems after the first 50 minutes, namely at the set-piece,” said Hadden.

“Considering how well it had gone up to then, it was a huge disappointment that it failed to function in the last 30 minutes, and therefore didn't give us the platform we need at that stage to chase the game.

“We had a couple of really clever sequences of play in the first half against France, but they came from quality set-piece, and unless you get that bit right it is really difficult to make progress.

“You have to play what is in front of you. Wales will be employing a rushing defence this week, and there are certain things you need to do to counter that and the key to being able to do that is the slickness of the set-piece.

“Being slick in that area is really important to our performance. We've made a lot of progress there over the last couple of years, and we're confident that we can rectify that by this weekend.”