Scotland's slump to an all-time low of 12th in the world rankings after failing to reach the knockout stages of the World Cup for the first time and suffering only the second championship "whitewash" in more than a quarter of a century left the SRU with no choice.
They had to keep Andy Robinson in his job.
From the moment Robinson put pen to paper on a contract extension ahead of the World Cup, the only thing that could have caused his departure would have been success. At the time he was considered a serious contender to coach next year's British & Irish Lions tour to Australia, while there have also been persistent rumours about him returning to his first love, Bath, where he and his family still live.
For either to offer him a deal that was in any way close to being as attractive a proposition as his current one required him to be seen as a high-grade product rather than the damaged goods that five steadily worsening Six Nations Championship bids with England and Scotland and a failed World Cup have made him as a head coach.
Placing that in context, Robinson was widely presumed to be the individual former chief executive Gordon McKie was referring to last year when claiming that his vast salary did not make him the highest paid employee at the SRU.
From Robinson's perspective, who would walk away from such a deal three-and-a-half years early with little or no prospect of getting close to matching it elsewhere? From the SRU's perspective, the organisation may not be as cash-strapped as it once was, but it is no position to hand over what might well have been a £1m pay-off then look for a replacement of the sort of calibre required.
That the review of such a dismal campaign appears to have been close to cursory, such was the haste in offering confirmation that Robinson would be staying on after Thursday's meeting with new CEO Mark Dodson, might be thought worrying, but again what choice did they have?
Whether or not it is the case, Dodson might as well put the bravest possible face on things and try to indicate that this is entirely in keeping with what everyone at executive and board level wanted.
As for the level of support Robinson has received from players, which of us would not want to work for a coach who was so undemanding that he spoke of "rewarding" them for their previous efforts when selecting them for the meeting with Italy? They had lost their six previous matches and went down meekly to a seventh successive defeat in Rome.
Since then there have been some attempts to suggest that had Robinson chosen to depart it would have been difficult for him to be replaced. That bears little scrutiny and not only because the most successful full-time head coach in the history of the Scottish professional game, Sean Lineen, has just become available.
There is also the matter of the many high-profile candidates who were ultimately rejected for the England job, which in turn takes us to the question of bringing home-grown coaching talent through the ranks as England have done in the case of former Scotland age-grade player Stuart Lancaster.
The contrast between Robinson's treatment and that of Frank Hadden, his predecessor who took Scotland to the quarter-finals of the 2007 World Cup and won more matches in his first Six Nations Championship than the Englishman has achieved in three campaigns, hints at a continuance of the Celtic cringe.
With that in mind, all hope is being invested in the recruitment of know-how from the other side of the planet in the shape of former Australia A backs coach Scott Johnson, who has a reputation for creating a stir in any camp he enters, and Matt Taylor, the Australian-born former Scotland A internationalist who helped Queensland Reds to their first ever Super 15 title last season as their defence coach.
Neither will be coming cheap in taking on what is a substantial task of bidding to undo the already costly damage done to the reputations of Scottish rugby and its national team's head coach.
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