Hadden despair despite Scots' progress
Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:45
Scotland coach Frank Hadden looked a forlorn figure after his side's last gasp 20-23 defeat to Italy at Rome's Stadio Flaminio at the weekend.
Scotland had dominated much of the match and were clearly frustrated that certain decisions had gone against them before Andrea Marcato's last-minute drop goal gave Italy their first win under new coach Nick Mallett.
The three-point difference meant the Scots avoided the wooden spoon - Italy needed to win by at least five points to overtake their visitors in the final standings - but that was scant consolation for Hadden.
Despite his obvious displeasure with the officiating - he felt there was a forward pass from Sergio Parisse to Gonzalo Canale for Italy's second try - Hadden claimed to be proud of his young squad.
They certainly have imporved drastically since their opening 6-27 thrashing at the hands of France, which was followed up by a 15-30 defeat to Wales and 13-34 reverse against Ireland
- before they beat England 15-9 at Murrayfield.
It had seemed at the start of the tournament as if Scotland had taken a huge step backwards since the World Cup, where they reached the quarterfinals - at Italy's expense.
"The preparations [for the Six Nations] just weren't good enough," said Hadden.
"We had a lot of difficulties from extremely difficult weather conditions, illness and a stream of unavailabilities.
"Under these circumstances we've fought our way back into making some progress."
Still despite this set-back, Hadden feels the future is bright for Scottish rugby.
"I'm extremely optimistic in the quality of this squad. We're not far away from making a serious impact and punching above our weight in future competitions.
"I think where we started against France was a shock to everyone in terms of the quality of performance. In the last half hour we didn't even win a single set piece.
"Against Wales we realised our attack wasn't asking enough questions. We made some progress against Ireland.
"We knew we had to up the quality against England and we did that and we were confident we could raise the bar again [Saturday] and we came very close to doing that."
Flank Allister Hogg put Scotland back on level terms following an early penalty try for the hosts as the visitors stretched Italy with a series of phases that resulted in Hogg breaking through.
Dan Parks landed a penalty to briefly give Scotland the lead before Marcato levelled matters.
But quick thinking from captain and scrumhalf Mike Blair to pick up and score under the posts gave Scotland a 17-10 half-time lead.
On the hour, though, Parisse intercepted Parks and sprinted clear before sending a long - and what the Scot feel was a forward - pass to Canale to score under the posts.
Marcato and Chris Paterson traded penalties before Marcato's drop-goal won the match for Italy.
