Hadden inherited a pool of players short on confidence and belief but has revitalised the experienced men and improved the fringe candidates to the point where there is now a significant depth of talent.

The back row and second row positions are now fiercely contended but perhaps Hadden's greatest achievement - in tandem with forwards coach George Graham - is the compilation of a front row which can stand up to the world's best.

In the backline, Hadden has a plethora of options at scrum-half and in the back three while his stand-off and centre permutations are increasingly strong.

Scotland begin their RBS 6 Nations campaign against France at Murrayfield and the former Edinburgh coach has every confidence in his squad.

He said: "It's taken some time to build the squad, there's been a lot of work gone into it. We've addressed positions where we thought there wasn't much competition and put a lot of effort into individuals to try to get them up to speed

"I'm really happy now with the competition we've got. You know, for a country as small as ours to have so many quality players available is a real boost for us."