Defeat to Italy at the weekend means Scotland are now on the worst losing streak since 1998 and serious questions are being asked about Andy Robinson's leadership.

But the problems for the Scottish game run a lot deeper than the coach's ability or lack of it.

The SRU has been attempting to change its image from blazer wearing club buffties to a slick professional organisation for a number of years now but what has really changed, not much.

Whereas defeat to England and France earlier in the tournament could be put down to some poor decisions on the park, the reality is that there was an inevitability about defeat in Rome. The sands of world rugby are shifting and if Scotland don't shift with them they will be buried.

The home truth is that until the SRU gets serious about broadening the appeal of the game in this country its future will be one of decline.

According to their own latest statistics there are just over 50,000 registered rugby union players across all ages in Scotland. Roughly the percentage of rugby players in Scotland per head of population is around 1% in Wales and England it is about 5% in New Zealand nearly 7%.

Here lies the crux of the problem. There is simply too few players playing the game to get a squad of a decent enough standard to make any sort of inroads in to the world game. For instance not one single player from a Glasgow state school has ever played for Scotland, ever.

This is not just a Glasgow public relations problem. Yes the round ball rules, but the SRU makes virtully no attempt to broaden the appeal of the game outside its core areas of Edinburgh, the Borders and former pupils of Glasgow's public schools. In reality it still relies almost exclusively on its traditional base geography for players. Improving the offering in these areas will help but it won't dramatically increase the numbers playing the game.

Even the loyal rugby loving middle class has seen the writing on the wall. Last season was the first time since Murrayfield was redeveloped that it failed to sell out any games.

Yes, they can pull off the odd result but that will become more and more infrequent as the balance of power in the game shifts.

Perhaps it's time to give up the pretence of being a leading nation. Now rugby has been nominated an Olympic sport countries like Russia are already investing millions into the game's development.

With Scotland already making heavy weather of getting past so called second tier teams like Romania and Georgia, without similar investment and vision to make the game more appealing to a broader church, there will be a massive change in Scotland's world ranking sooner rather than later. It isn't going to be up the way.

As an aside to this sorry state of affairs isn't the fact that no Scottish referee has officiated over a international match for nearly ten years merely reinforce the view that the development of the game in this country is sadly neglected?

And Andy Robinson can't shoulder the blame for that.