"He is just a good bloke." Johnnie Beattie's ringing endorsement of the Scotland head coach goes a long way to explaining why the players who could hardly win a game in the Six Nations are suddenly able to hammer Argentina and stand toe-to-toe with New Zealand.

"There is no selling of the sizzle. It is what it is. It works well and he is good with it. There is no razamatazz and falseness. Just a good, old- fashioned bloke who is a good rugby coach," the Castres No.8 continues. That is it: no great, secret gameplan, no flash gimmicks, just simple, straightforward, down-to-earth trust and honesty.

There has to be a little more to it than that. After all, plenty of teams have liked and respected their coach without going through the transformation Beattie reckons he has seen in this side - and transformation is exactly the right word. He remembers the dull, dark days of the spring of this year, and when he compares that with the electric atmosphere at Murrayfield last Saturday, it is hard to reconcile the fact that largely the same people were involved both on the field and in the stands.

"That was the first time I have been back at Murrayfield since we lost to England in the Six Nations, when we got humped 20-0," he said. "We showed absolutely nothing, produced absolutely nothing and could not create anything for our fans to get behind us and enjoy. To go from where we have been to where we are now in that space of time has been great. It is encouraging, but the important thing is we keep working on what we have been given, the simple things he has given us, retain them and keep getting better.

"It is the same group of players really, with a few youngsters coming in, but the rugby we are producing and the spectacle for our supporters is much better. We saw that with the New Zealand game when we managed to stay in it.

"We did not win, granted, but we showed the effort, our ability to retain the ball, the ability to stretch a team like New Zealand. We saw what that meant and what that gave the group of supporters at Murrayfield. I have not seen that, pretty much since I have been involved.

"We are lucky to have someone like Vern. Already we can see, after two games, his imprint, his game plan and his structures and how he wants to go about our play. We are definitely in a better place."

Not that it was easy for Beattie to get back in the team. As he pointed out, unlike a few of his colleagues he missed the defeat by Tonga two years ago because he was so far out of the picture that he could not even make the larger training squad assembled to prepare for the November games.

Even now that he is back in the fold, life does not get any easier. The likes of Kelly Brown and John Barclay are still around and capable of playing No.8, while David Denton, Ryan Wilson, Kieran Low and Adam Ashe have all played there for Scotland in recent times, and Josh Strauss is ready to complete his three-year residency and become qualified to add his name to the list in time for the next World Cup.

"Probably the best position we have produced - well, forever. It is fantastic we have strength in depth," Beattie added, as he denied he is already thinking about a World Cup place. "I would love to be involved but rugby is a funny old game. You see injuries all the time, players in and out, coaches change their views on you. I have been in and out of the squad for 10 years under different coaches. This is a chance to impress Vern [Cotter] and to impress my team-mates. The end result is just try to be retained.

"He [Cotter] has given me goals to try to stay within the match 23, within the 30-man training group. These are things I have to do for my team-mates in order to be retained and to have a chance to be part of what I think could be a good time for Scotland."