WINGER Simon Danielli issued a "lay off Frank Hadden plea" after Scotland had suffered their 12th Six Nations Championship defeat in 15 matches by 22-15 against Ireland at Murrayfield.
On his own admission coach Hadden expects the debate over his future to intensify – "I accept inevitable discussion because that's not enough matches won", he said – but Danielli attempted to head off critics, saying: "We (the players) let the coach
down.
"You have to feel for Frank and we are right behind the whole team management.
"It's not Frank Hadden that is making elementary mistakes. It is us. The flak should be directed at us more, if not all, than him."
The biggest indictment of this Scottish performance is that they played like headless chickens after turning round 12-9 ahead.
Passes were fumbled, turnovers conceded and line-outs surrendered tamely amidst a climate of panic worthy of Corporal Jones, of Dad's Army fame. To his credit Danielli didn't try to hide behind any excuses for shortcomings and rallied to the besieged Hadden's standard, saying: "We had the game plan to succeed."
Where it went wrong according to Ulster star Danielli was in a lack of clinical finishing power in order to make Ireland take risks playing catch-up.
"What was particularly disappointing was how Ireland were able to stay in the game without having to do that much work in the first half," he said.
"We should have been further ahead and with a few more points on the board it could have been a different outcome.
"One of the chances fell to me and as to whether I was tap tackled just short, the Irish marker didn't have hold of me when I went down so I'll have to look again at what happened.
"I could have possibly squeezed in but that is the hairsbreadth that separates success from failure in rugby and there was other pressure with Graeme Morrison making good holes in midfield and Thom Evans producing an electric burst.
"If that was the source of our frustration then the positive is that we were creating chances.
"These occurred all the way through to half-time where we anticipated Ireland turning round and throwing everything at us and our team-talk centred on meeting their attacks head on.
"What happened was we didn't get enough possession to generate go-forward and that was partly down to Ireland reducing their error count."
"They left us feeling that we might have played the best team in the tournament, a view reinforced when you look at the calibre of players like Andrew Trimble who doesn't even make their bench just now."
While Ireland go about putting that assessment to the test in Wales on the concluding day the Scots will be striving to avoid a wooden spoon at Twickenham.
Despite the fact Scotland haven't won in West London for 26 years Danielli sees hope.
"Even if we win at Twickenham there will still be elements where we have been disappointing looking at the tournament overall.
"But there are also heartening aspects such as the good first half against Ireland and the winning margin against an Italy side who pushed Wales all the way.
"As for Chris Paterson, who got all our points, his place-kicking he is amazing with no angle too much for him.
"That's another source of encouragement but above all it is worth remembering reason how fickle the margins are at this level; hopefully the fans will stick with a side containing real talent and passion."
Whether bosses stick with Hadden beyond this championship is now down to his renowned survival ability – remember how he emerged victorious from a last chance saloon in Argentina where Scotland had never previously won a Test? – and the coach certainly isn't deluding himself about what has to be done.
Said a sombre Hadden, so weary that he restricted himself to only one complaint about the lack of preparation time afforded his side: "We had the game by the scruff of the neck coming in at half-time and we basically gave the game to Ireland with one or two elementary errors.
"There were a lot of errors from line-outs. It's all about having possession. You can't have territory without possession.
"From five line-outs in the second half we lost three. We had six kick offs and dealt with two.
"Every time we scored we were giving territory back on the edge of our 22."
As for having the weight of history on his and the team's shoulders at Twickenham where the last time Scotland won a third on their latest starting line-up hadn't been born, Hadden insists:
"It's one final opportunity to make a splash."
For that to happen and Scotland to avoid going 'splodge', Paterson will have to kick every goal because no international defence worthy of the name is going to be punctured with the sort of predictability being produced by Scotland behind the scrum.
That said, Danielli creates a buzz with ball in hand and the same goes for both Evans', with Phil Godman nothing if not enterprising in looking to inject some pace.
However, too much Scottish possession continues to be slow back from rucks and if Jim Hamilton drove the ball up well on occasions in challenging the tireless Ally Strokosch for top pack honours, too often these efforts are undermined by needless penalties while on one occasion dissent crept in, costing further valuable ground.
Yet it had all looked reasonably promising when Paterson out-shot Ronan O'Gara by four first half penalties to three, especially if Scotland could summon up sufficient continuity to cause line-breaks and threaten the composure of a side with pressure of expectation to deal with.
Indeed, the big half-time hope was that if the game did break up then the likes of the Evans' brothers would prove too much of a handful but failure to impose themselves up front meant it was the Irish who imposed the stranglehold, leaving Scotland looking short of any sort of structure.
So much so that in 50 minutes the visitors took a giant leap on their way to a long awaited grand slam when Peter Stringer was given freedom around the line-out tail before handing on for Jamie Heaslip to cross unopposed.
With O'Gara's conversion a formality while Chris Cusiter was preparing to replace captain Mike Blair whose back injury makes him a doubt next week the Scots were looking flustered, their mood not helped by the Irish kicker quickly adding a drop goal.
It was after Paterson had landed his fifth and final penalty that O'Gara tossed Scotland a lifeline with a rare miss, but instead of capitalising, they almost waved the Irish side through to the finish, a mix-up close to the home line being just scrambled clear.
Scotland may have escaped on that occasion but O'Gara ensured there would be no major reprieve with a further penalty which leaves Scotland looking to finish a campaign of which so much was expected by defending the Calcutta Cup on what, alas, is increasingly looking like Frank Hadden's last stand, though very definitely do not write the ex-Edinburgh coach off.
If Scotland were to win then that would put Hadden in a very elite band to have masterminded a tartan Twickenham triumph, though the last occasion was preceded by radical selection including a captaincy switch to Jim Aitken who was to go on and gain grand slam immortality.
Bookies will be offering long odds against such a happening this time around.
