Lansdowne Road, early March 2006. At no stage before or since has Frank Hadden’s grip on the national job been tighter. His first three Six Nations games have brought two big scalps (France and England), and three big efforts. Scotland are performing, so is their coach.

A couple of years on, Hadden is boxed in at every corner. Since he was last in Ireland, Scotland’s Six Nations record is two wins from nine. Hadden could, possibly, survive another result as bad as the two already lodged this year, provided he sees off one of Italy and England in the closing couplet. Anything like as barren a performance, however, and his credibility will have no fig leaf.

In between guiding Scotland to respectability in the World Cup and signing a rolling contract in December, Hadden could afford to take time out to consider whether his desire and drive were what they had once been. What Gordon McKie, the SRU chief executive, must judge in the coming weeks is not whether Hadden is up for the job, but up to it. A mound of negative evidence amassed against France and Wales will need shifting at Croke Park if the coach is not to be summarily buried.

“It’s about lots of little things coming together better,” he said. “We’re aware we need to play a hell of a lot better, but we can. When I watched the [Wales] game again, there were aspects that were better than I thought. I know what to look for when I travel away from home. One of them is to be in the game after threequarters of it. How often has that not been the case? Against Wales, we were still in it with 20 minutes to go.”

Fair point, but not in light of the overall Scottish struggle. Unlike his team, however, Hadden wasn’t letting go. “At the start of the second half, we broke with a clean line break from inside our own half,” he said. “We kicked the goal, they kicked off, we dealt with it and finished up back in their half. I thought, ‘We’re going to win this’.” And we thought concussed captain Jason White was the only one on the Scotland bench who was out of it.

The tangled webs Hadden weaves with the media would be inconsequential if there was any indication that the players are getting it straighter. Of all the things that have been missing so far in the Six Nations, a strategy is the most concerning. Wales and Italy have had two games with their new coaches, and already it is clear what they are trying to do. Scotland look trapped between far too many stools. They bring a gliding runner such as Nick De Luca into the threequarter line, then persist with a kicking game. They ask Dan Parks to hit the corners, fail to dominate the lineout, then stumble on with the original tactic.

“We’re clear what we need to do,” says Hadden. “Two weeks ago everyone felt we had a decent bunch who had nothing to be afraid of in the Six Nations. Nothing has changed. We have a few problems, and my job is to try to solve them. Going into the tournament, you’re not sure what bits are functioning and what bits are not. Now we know where we are, it’s obvious what we need to do.”

Indeed it is: knit together more meaningful phases of possession, win more quick ball, score more tries, and win more matches. These are the same issues that have been problematic for the best part of a year. Throughout that time Hadden told us everything was coming together behind the scenes. At present, it just seems to be coming apart.

Ireland v Scotland, Saturday, BBC1, 4.50pm, kick-off 5pm