Scotland head coach Frank Hadden claims the national team would be in a desperate state by now without professional domestic rugby.

The closure of Borders at the end of last season has left Scotland with only two clubs, Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh, who are both financially supported by the Scottish Rugby Union.

Scotland reached the World Cup quarter-finals and although Hadden remains "absolutely gutted" their campaign ended in the last eight, he sees a bright future for the national team providing full-time rugby continues at home.

A host of Scotland's players now belong to clubs in England, Ireland and France.

Although Hadden sees that as a sign of success and not necessarily a bad thing for his team, he appreciates home crowds are missing out on seeing the star men in action.

"The reason these guys have got jobs down south is because of the success of professional rugby in our country," he told BBC Radio Scotland.

"It's been a tremendous developmental tool for these guys and it's a shame that we haven't got so many of our best players playing in our country now because the supporters deserve to see these players.

"Ultimately I think the reason we've been able to cling on to the top tier of world rugby is because we have had professional rugby in our country.

"I honestly believe that if it wasn't for that, we would have slid so far down the rankings we couldn't have had a chance of even the quarters in this World Cup."

Hadden still finds it hard to accept his side lost 19-13 to Argentina in the last eight in Paris, and believes they should have been involved in the final four.

Having returned to Scotland, Hadden said: "At the moment we're absolutely gutted to be here.

"We believe at this stage we should be in Paris probably having a glass of red wine or a coffee somewhere, because the thing just opened up for us beautifully.

"We got ourselves into contention with a lot of hard work. Ultimately it was hugely disappointing that we didn't make it to the semis."

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