Under Frank Hadden

In the 2006 Autumn internationals Scotland won two of three fixtures. They convincingly beat Romania and put up a solid first half performance against the Pacific Islanders. In the final match against Australia, Scotland failed to impress. A sound first half performance was squandered with an uncharacteristicly poor defence in the second. Australia went on to win the game 44-15. The series provided a mixture of advances and setbacks. Scotland lost several key players through injury, notbly captain Jason White suffered a knee injury and missed the entire 2007 Six Nations Championship.
Scotland suffered a humiliating defeat on February 24, 2007 when they became the first Six Nations team to lose at home to Italy, 17-37. This was Italy's biggest ever victory over Scotland, home or away. After only six minutes of the match Scotland were already trailing 0-21, due to a clearance kick being charged down and two interceptions by the Italians (caused by poor choice of game plan and sloppy passing in the 9/10 channel). Man of the match was awarded to Italian Alessandro Troncon, who scored a late try to put the match out of reach.

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Under Frank Hadden

Frank Hadden, the head coach of Edinburgh Gunners (previously a PE teacher at Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh), was appointed interim coach for the 2005 summer internationals against the Barbarians and Romania, winning two from two and instilling confidence in the national side again. On the 15 September 2005, he was appointed national coach of the Scotland team up to and including the 2007 World Cup.
In the first match of the 2006 Six Nations campaign, against France, Scotland won 20-16, and this was the first time since 1999 that they had beaten France. Scotland also beat England 18-12 at home at Murrayfield on February 25, 2006 to reclaim the Calcutta Cup.

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2003 season & the future

After a poor start in the Six Nations 2003-04 in which Scotland did not win a single match and so qualified for rugby's version of the wooden spoon, things were believed to be steadily improving once again under the Australian coach Matt Williams, the first foreigner to coach the national team.
Despite setbacks, many new and talented young players are coming through to the top level. Yet the record for 2004 was disappointing: Played 12, Won 2, Lost 10. Williams also attempted to introduce a controversial "Fortress Scotland" policy, whereby only those currently playing in Scotland were eligible to play in the national team. Meanwhile the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) is under new management, Chief Executive Phil Anderton (known as 'Firework Phil' for his pre-match entertainment spectacles) was leading the way back to financial solvency and implementing major reforms to reverse the decline of the game in Scotland, but he resigned in January 2005 after his boss David Mackay was forced to resign by the SRU's general committee. Since then, much effort and thought has gone into restructuring the way the game is governed in Scotland.

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