Hadden walks the plank

Frank Hadden’s four-year spell in charge of Scotland came to an end tonight after the Scottish Rugby Union announced he was stepping down with immediate effect.

The 53-year-old former school teacher’s fate was sealed at a meeting of the SRU board today in which the country’s performance at the recent RBS 6 Nations was dissected.

Hadden was effectively a dead man walking after failing to meet the SRU’s minimum requirement of two Six Nations wins per season for the second successive year.

The search has already begun for his replacement, with former England head coach Andy Robinson – currently in charge of Edinburgh – the early front-runner.

SRU chief executive Gordon McKie said: “Following a presentation at today’s Scottish Rugby Board, covering a review of the Scotland performance in the RBS 6 Nations Championship, it was agreed with Frank Hadden that a change in head coach is required to allow us to plan fully for the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.

“On behalf of the board, I have thanked Frank for his hard work and commitment during his term as national coach.”

It is a sad way to go for Hadden, who was adamant to the bitter end that Scotland had the players capable of challenging for the Six Nations title but were handicapped by a lack of preparation time for Test matches compared to their rivals.

Following their defeat by England just under two weeks ago, he said: “I honestly believe that we can win the championship with this squad.

“We have a squad of players that is capable of being very competitive at the very highest level but I am frustrated we don’t get the preparation time we want.

“The fact (other teams) have the control over the players they do makes life much easier for them.”

Even taking this into account, there was a distinct lack of progress under Hadden in terms of results.

He enjoyed a dream start to life in the hot seat following the disastrous reign of Matt Williams, who was sacked in April 2005 after winning only three of his 17 matches in charge.

Former Edinburgh boss Hadden initially took over on an interim basis but wins against the Barbarians and Romania secured him the job permanently.

It got better when victory over France, England – their first Calcutta Cup win for six years – and Italy saw Scotland finish third in Hadden’s debut Six Nations.

That really was as good as it got, however, as Hadden lost 21 of his next 32 Tests.

Scotland finished the 2007 Six Nations with the wooden spoon after a humiliating home defeat by Italy, scraped into the World Cup quarter-finals before losing to Argentina, and only just managed to avoid bottom spot in the Six Nations last year on points difference.

Another famous win against England papered over the cracks, and a first ever Test victory in Argentina later that summer was a notable achievement.

A change of backroom staff bought Hadden more time but also made it clear the buck would now stop with him.

The new regime promised much after encouraging performances against New Zealand and an agonising loss to world champions South Africa last autumn.

It prompted a confident Hadden to declare he had the strongest squad of his time in charge going into this year’s Six Nations.

It was another false dawn as Wales crushed Scotland at Murrayfield in their opening match and, although they improved, Hadden appeared unable to instill a winning mentality in the side.

The 26-12 Calcutta Cup defeat by England two weeks ago was Scotland’s 12th loss in their last 16 matches, a record that only Williams could have envied.

Speaking after the game at Twickenham, captain Mike Blair claimed Hadden had the full support of his squad and laid the blame for the poor results at the feet of the players.

“It’s individual basic errors that are letting the opposition into the game,” he said.

“That’s not something the coaching staff can deal with. That’s for the players to deal with.”

It will not take long to find out if Blair is right.