Leeds stand-off Gordon Ross is delighted to be back in the Scotland fold – but refused to be drawn on talk he should start the RBS 6 Nations campaign in the number 10 jersey.
Scotland, who won only once in last season’s tournament against Italy at Murrayfield, begin this year’s campaign against France in Edinburgh on February 5.
An out-of-sorts Ross missed the autumn international series due a lack of form with his club, but has been handed a recall by Hadden with he and Leeds now starting to find their feet.
The club are still bottom of the Premiership but have shown improvement and came close to booking a European Cup quarter-final place at the weekend after thumping Cardiff Blues 48-3.
Ross, Dan Parks, Phil Godman and Chris Paterson are among the contenders touted to start the competition at stand-off but the 27-year-old is pleased simply to be back among his international colleagues.
Ross said: "I was disappointed to miss the autumn games but I wasn’t playing particularly well so it gave me a chance to get my confidence and form back down at Leeds.
"As a club, we weren’t playing with much confidence in November after losing seven out of seven at the start of the season.
"We were going off in different patterns and not on the same lengths. So we had a few meetings to make sure we were singing from the same hymn sheet basically.
"That helped everyone and we started playing as one team and that made things a lot easier.
"We’ve now had a couple of good performances and results and that has helped me."
Ross has avoided press attention over Hadden’s dilemma at number 10 after Parks failed to cover himself in glory during the autumn matches.
Now he wants to simply impress in training for the right to get in the squad to face the French.
He added: "I don’t see much of the press down south and what’s going on but in the last two or three years when I’ve got involved with Scotland it’s been when I’ve been doing quite well for Leeds.
"So I just focus on doing well there and then you hope things happen with Scotland.
"Now we’re all looking forward to the start of this championship as there is a great excitement within the camp. The games can’t come quickly enough."
