Dan Parks was reinstated to Scotland's side for Saturday's RBS 6 Nations Championship meeting with Ireland yesterday and admitted to bewilderment at having been dropped in the first place.

While Frank Hadden, the head coach, was trying to fend off suggestions that Phil Godman had been a scapegoat for the defeat by Italy, the man who has replaced him at stand-off made it clear that he felt he should have been playing that game.

"It was very frustrating after the England game, not being picked for the next one. I couldn't understand why, but I just had to take it, which was very difficult, to be honest," said Parks, whose reintroduction is the only change to the starting XV.

Clearly he felt he had done exactly what was asked of him in that match, and indeed Hadden had praised him afterwards for what the coach described as a world-class kicking display. The reminder that the coach had said afterwards that he had always intended to start both stand- offs in the opening two fixtures seemed to cut little ice with the Glasgow Warriors playmaker.

What rankled most with him, however, seemed to be that having at times this season executed the sort of very expansive gameplan favoured by Sean Lineen, the Warriors coach, to excellent effect, he is being pigeon-holed as a kicking stand-off.

"That frustrates me a bit," he went on. "I play to a gameplan which is basically set out by whatever team I play for at the time, and there's sometimes kicking involved. Then you kick well and you're cast as a kicking 10."

If that fell short of directly blaming those who chose the tactics for the failure against England, then it was only just.

Perhaps seeking to avoid it being interpreted that way, Parks did attempt to insinuate that this is a media-driven view, but he had to accept that it has been reinforced by messages from the team management and said that had been hard to take.

"Obviously it is," he said. "You get told to play a certain way, then if you carry those instructions out, there are times when you have to kick the ball."

Certainly it is the position that seems to be giving the management cause for concern. Perhaps, as can also happen with players with whom coaches have worked for a long time, Hadden is a little too close to it, as an ex-stand-off himself. Both those elements were worth considering in the way he defended Godman, a player Hadden has coached since his schooldays, when denying that he was carrying the can for the defeat by Italy, having made the error that started the problems in that game.

"That would be unfair," said the coach. "It was vital for us to bring Phil in to give him experience at this level and we don't just look at one incident. I would say he's a year to 18 months from his peak because he's got so much potential."

In the meantime, Hadden explained why he has once again resisted the clamour for Chris Paterson to start in the playmaker role.

"We think the strategy of bringing him in when we have has been really successful," Hadden reckoned.

The captain has been moved to stand-off late in all three championship matches so far, and made a particular impact when scoring a try against Italy that almost got his side back into the game. As when he was switched against England, however, it was too late to influence the outcome, which is why many would prefer that he was there from the start.

Clearly there is a need to get more game-time there. Yet Hadden cannot make public demands for Edinburgh to play him there at least partly because, having complained about being put under that sort of pressure by national coaches when he was there, he would be hoist by his own petard.

"I'm not going to talk about that without speaking to Edinburgh. There's no way I'm going to pass comment on that," he said. "It would be totally inappropriate to apply pressure through the press."

Edinburgh's management may make of that what they wish, but they managed to produce some better news for the Scotland coach yesterday when confirming that Dave Callam would be staying with them for the next two years.

That at least starts to reverse the trend set ahead of the Italy game when it seemed that every leading player in Scotland was set to leave the country, but Callam, who had been tipped to join French club Bourgoin, expressed his confidence in the Edinburgh set-up.

"There were a few options on the table but I'm very excited by what's happening at Edinburgh," said the 24-year-old.

He held off clubmate Ally Hogg's challenge to maintain his place as Scotland's No.8 while the only other change to the 22 that faced Italy has Rory Lamont returning to the bench in place of Nikki Walker.

The match against Ireland will be very memorable for lock Scott Murray, who will be winning a record 83rd cap for Scotland.