Hadden knows that it wasn't just dismal performances that did for Mattie Williams – and my god they were dismal – it was empty seats at Murrayfield. SRU chief executive Gordon McKie may have knowledge gaps when it comes to rugby, but the arch number-cruncher is on intimate terms with the bottom line. And at the moment the bottom line is that not enough Scots are turning up to watch Scotland play at Murrayfield.

Last week there were over 15,000 empty seats at the home of Scottish rugby when just 51,000 turned up to watch Scotland take on an All Blacks' second string that was considered eminently beatable. Yesterday, for the visit of the world champions, there were over 30,000 empty seats as the attendance came in at a disappointing 36,037.

Over 45,000 unsold seats when the prices for these autumn internationals have already been heavily discounted means that the SRU is over £1m short of the total that it would have earned from two full houses.

It's a statement of the bleeding obvious that when fans have no reasonable expectation of success, they soon start to become no-shows. That tendency is accelerated when the manner of defeat is deemed unacceptable. I have friends who are still so incensed by the decision to field a second team against the All Blacks in the World Cup that they won't go back to Murrayfield while Hadden is coach.

Notwithstanding the bright start against the All Blacks last week and yesterday's outstanding performance, it is also undeniable that the manner of Scotland's defeats throughout Hadden's tenure has alienated large swathes of potential supporters. Poor old Dan Parks – the conservative, safety-first option – is widely perceived as symptomatic of all that fans instinctively dislike about Hadden's Scotland. Unfortunately for the national coach, the stats bear out the impression of a side that couldn't score in the London Street sauna.

You think that's harsh? Okay, leaving the amateurs of Romania and Portugal or the experimental Irish side fielded in the World Cup warm-up to one side, can you remember the last time Scotland scored a try at Murrayfield before yesterday? No? The answer is 24th February 2007, in that infamous match where Italy took a three-try advantage before most of us had settled in our seats.

There is little doubt that the back division coached by Hadden has been the worst performing in the Six Nations.

The recently enhanced terms of the BBC Six Nations contract, which is understood to have put around £4m extra into Murrayfield's coffers, means that the Union can absorb the lost revenue from the empty seats, while the visit of buoyant Ireland and Wales in the Six Nations means that Murrayfield will be a sell-out for two of the three home championship games (the third is against Italy). But McKie also knows that there is a major problem on the horizon that may bring Scotland's lack of crowds into stark relief.

McKie was in London on Thursday at a profoundly acrimonious meeting of the top ten Unions from around the world. At that meeting the long-simmering southern hemisphere frustration at England and France touring with understrength teams boiled over when it became clear that France were about to renege on a written commitment to send a full-strength side to New Zealand in June. The cause was comic (the Stade de France is booked for a Johnny Cash tribute on the last weekend in May, pushing the French Club Championship final into June so that competing players will miss the beginning of the tour) but the effect was explosive.

Put simply, the Tri-Nations have made it clear that the next time a dud European side turns up on their shores they will pull out of the IRB rotation, meaning they can choose when and where to tour. After successfully staging a Bledisloe Cup test in Hong Kong, their appetite has been whetted and there are already tentative plans to play an extra round of the Tri-Nations in Denver, Tokyo and either Wembley or Twickenham.

And when the All Blacks and Springboks play against Six Nations sides, instead of effectively playing for free as they have done on this tour, they would be free to negotiate their own terms as they did when England paid the Kiwis £1m to open Twickenham in an international match that fell outside of the Test window. The All Blacks believe they are worth half the gate money and, while they say they will do their best to keep touring Scotland, they will inevitably chase the money – and not only do England, France, Ireland and Wales have significantly bigger grounds, they also sell them out too. The best-case scenario would be that the Tri-Nations sides turn up at Murrayfield but take half the gate.

The All Blacks in particular are extremely protective of the brand and don't want to see a point where they are playing to conspicuously half-full stadia, which is the main reason for pausing for thought before deciding whether, for instance, to take up the offer of $4m from the city of Denver to play a Bledisloe Cup test at the Mile High Stadium.

Yet in many ways whether the Tri-Nations and England and France can reach an agreement that will preserve the IRB's test windows in the Autumn and summer is beside the point. It is simply yet another demonstration of the fact that rugby in Scotland is completely underpinned by the revenues earned by the Scotland team from games at Murrayfield. Yesterday was a glimmer of light at last but now Hadden needs to convince both McKie and a sceptical Scottish rugby public that he can provide this sort of entertainment match after match. Unless he can do that – starting next Saturday at Pittodrie – then this is surely a dead cat bounce.