It would have been stupid not to use Robinson, admits Hadden

SCOTLAND coach Frank Hadden has tried to play down Andy Robinson's role in helping Scotland lift the Calcutta Cup, but admitted that it would have been foolish not to have involved the Edinburgh coach.

Hadden has continued with his long-term policy of involving the professional team coaches in Scotland and, alongside the vital work of his assistants George Graham and Alan Tait, Robinson joined Glasgow coach Sean Lineen at Murrayfield training sessions last week.

The former England coach, who stood down last year after an unhappy reign at Twickenham, was able to provide insight into England's style – particularly in the forwards – and his input helped contribute to Scotland securing a long-awaited first victory of the year. There was never a suggestion that Robinson had taken over from either Hadden or Graham, but merely that Hadden had tapped into his knowledge and reaped the benefit.

Scotland's head coach said: "Obviously, we have a number of people who we ask to assist us with our preparation. I actually wanted all the coaches in last week, but someone had to stay and coach Edinburgh and Glasgow, so Andy and Sean came in and are in with us again this week, and that's fairly normal practice.

"They didn't have a specific remit; they weren't focusing on one particular area, but were available for feedback, as it is when I go and watch them train. I watch Glasgow and Edinburgh play every week and I phone them during the week and we talk out the game, and we looked for that sort of feedback from both Sean and Andy last week.

"You would think we were stupid if we didn't ask Andy for some information in the build-up to the England game."

Scotland's head coach, who has drafted both Simon Danielli and Scott Lawson into the squad, was clearly pleased with the quality of his team's performance against England, but insisted that it would count for little were the team to fail to replicate that against Italy.

"In the weather conditions, we were not far off flawless (against England]," said Hadded. "I thought we played a bit of rugby as well. We haven't ever produced tackle and defence stats as good as we did on Saturday (two missed tackles in 105]. But I said to the guys that the work would be wasted if it was just because they had white jerseys in front of them. That has to be our benchmark. We have raised the bar and that was the reason so many people have been disappointed this season.

"People were bitterly disappointed that we couldn't beat France. That was really painful, which it wouldn't have been in the past. We're slowly raising the confidence levels of the supporters and the players. I expected more of a carry-over of momentum from the World Cup. I knew the preparations were not always good, that we had injuries and other problems, but I still thought there would be a carry-over. When there wasn't I was gutted. I thought, 'here we go; we're starting again.'

"If preparations continue to improve then I expect us to play better on Saturday. It would be incredibly disappointing if the players started to slacken off now, but I'm pretty confident they won't."

He added: "We didn't have to play out of our skins on Saturday – it wasn't a super-human effort – but the players all did their jobs really well for the first time. Previously we have had people letting us down who have been honest enough to hold their hand up in the aftermath, but on Saturday they could all be really chuffed with a job well done. Now that has got to be the benchmark; that has got to be the par.

"We're aware of how tough a challenge (Italy] are going to be because they are a side which has made a lot of progress over the last couple of years. They have a very, very impressive pack and they are beginning to move the ball around with a lot more confidence now. We actually believe that it is going to be a bigger challenge this week.

"We've got to a situation where I think we deserve the right to be confident whenever we play at home, which makes the biggest disappointment so far the French result. The real challenge for us is to win some of these incredibly difficult Six Nations away matches, and here we've got a great opportunity to try and do that this weekend."