Andrea Marcato's last-minute drop goal gave Italy coach Nick Mallet his first win in the competition, and all but erased the memory of last week's Calcutta Cup victory.
Indeed, only three points separated Scotland from the ignominy of the wooden s
poon, but Hadden maintains his side had progressed during the tournament and will keep growing under his guidance.
He said: "Considering the start of this competition and how far we appear to have regressed from the World Cup, we were in a pretty dark place at that stage.
"We had to work incredibly hard to make the progress that I feel we have made in this championship. We are not far away from making a serious impact and punching above our weight in future competitions.
"We will now enter a spell of appraisal. This is likely to start right away. I am confident this young side will make better decisions in future games."
Any appraisal of Scotland's campaign will have to focus on the performance of Dan Parks in the No.10 shirt.
A year ago, Scotland gift-wrapped the Azzurri's first away victory in the Six Nations, throwing three intercepted tries inside the first six minutes.
Whatever lessons were learnt from that Murrayfield horror show obviously went unheeded by Parks, who topped the Six Nations error chart with seven howlers alone coming at the Stadio Flaminio. Two of those led to Italy's tries.
The first came on 15 minutes when his looped pass was intercepted by Kaine Robertson.
His kick ahead was caught by Chris Paterson who was promptly smashed behind his own try line by three white shirts.
From the resulting 5m scrum, Martin Castrogiovanni pulverised Alan Jacobsen until referee Nigel Owens awarded a penalty try.
The second was even more painful. This time, Italy's outstanding No.8 Sergio Parisse was the grateful recipient of another wild, directionless Parks pass. Parisse's own pass then looked suspiciously forward, but Gonzalo Canale cared not a jot as he gleefully dived over.
Not that those were isolated incidents for Parks, who missed tackles, knocked on, kicked poorly and looked a shadow of the player he was at last year's World Cup.
The more he tried, the more things seemed to go wrong, and with just two backs on the bench – one of whom was Andrew Henderson, who had to replace the unfortunate Simon Danielli after he was injured in the opening stages – there was no escape from the torment.
Despite Parks' tribulations, Scotland managed to play in patches – after Italy's early score, they controlled the first half.
Henderson looked to have blown a simple opportunity after failing to beat scrum-half Simon Picone one-on-one. But Scotland retained possession and some great hands by lock Scott MacLeod sent Ally Hogg over.
Parks and Marcato exchanged penalties before Scotland grabbed their second try in first-half stoppage time, thanks to the opportunism of skipper Mike Blair.
The scrum-half spotted a gap in the Italian ruck and before Marco Bortolami or Castrogiovanni could react he was away and under the posts.
A 17-10 lead at half-time was vindication for some controlled, aggressive rugby, but that soon fell to pieces in the second half.
Parks' malaise spread. Even the normally unflappable Paterson was affected and the more the game descended into an error-strewn slugfest, the more it suited the Italians. After Canale's try, Marcato edged the Italians back in front with a penalty after Alasdair Strokosch was caught offside.
Paterson immediately hit back to level the scores with his 33rd consecutive successful kick – an incredible achievement which looked like it had sapped the Italians spirit.
But with time almost up, Italy secured possession and seemed determined to grab the try which would have given Scotland the wooden spoon, only to be repelled by a wall of blue.
Instead, they switched to their Plan B, and Marcato kept his nerve to slot his drop goal, sparking ecstatic scenes among the Italian players and coaches.
The Scots, meanwhile, were despondent, but Hadden was quick to try and draw positives from the narrow defeat, adding: "Losing Nikki Walker in the build-up was a blow, so was losing Simon Danielli after six minutes, and then to go down to a penalty try after ten minutes. But the side showed incredible character to recover from all those setbacks.
"It took a remarkable strength of will to get them to a situation where not only did we dominate and control the game, but had we scored in the second half with some of the opportunities we created, then we could have gone on to record our best performance over here in Italy.
"Sadly, it was not to be, and credit to Sergio Parisse, a top quality player, for taking a huge gamble and picking an interception out of the air. Those are the margins by which games are won and lost. Though you normally get forward passes when the ball is thrown over the line, it was not to be.
"We were especially gutted for our supporters who came over here and wanted us to do well. We felt we were very close to giving them a memorable performance here in Rome."
While the game itself will not live long in anyone's memory, the long-term repercussions are significant, not least for Hadden's job prospects.
A 15-point win for Scotland would have moved them into the top eight of the World Rankings which will decide the 2011 World Cup seedings.
The tournament has also exposed a raft of deep-seated problems which Hadden urgently needs to address before the summer tour to Argentina.
In total, Scotland made just nine line breaks in the entire Six Nations – the lowest of any team. Wales led the way on 38.
A return of four tries from Hadden's last eight games in charge cannot just be blamed on injuries though they certainly played their part.
Injuries, referees and oddly-shaped balls have all been part of catalogue of excuses used by Hadden, but ultimately the buck stops with him.
One win – albeit over the Auld Enemy – may just have granted him a stay of execution, but in the eyes of many, Marcato's drop goal has made Hadden a dead man walking.
The full article contains 1082 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
