By Alasdair Lamont

James McFadden's reaction on Wednesday night says it all

Scotland's sporting fortunes are at an all-time low if the newspaper headline writers are to be believed.

Two resounding defeats in a week by Wales, first on the rugby field, then on the football pitch, have triggered another bout of sporting depression.

Things could get worse before they get better as well, with England the visitors to Murrayfield this weekend.

Humiliation at the hands of the Auld Enemy, a bitter pill to swallow at the best of times, would be a real choker.

What is clear is that Scotland, as a sporting nation, has been left behind as countries who used to be referred to as minnows have caught up and overtaken the Scots.

The authorities, both political and sporting, have been guilty of complacency for much too long and, as a result, Scotland find themselves slipping uncontrollably down the rankings.

The fundamental problem, which has now been acknowledged by those who run both the Scottish Rugby Union and the Scottish Football Association, lies at grassroots level.

According to SportScotland, the national agency whose remit is to develop sport in Scotland, participation levels in this country are the lowest in Europe.

Even football, still the national sport, has a dwindling participation level and though measures are being introduced across the board to try to reverse that trend, it is clear that such steps should have been taken 10 or 20 years earlier.

There is an argument that the dearth of talented Scots sportsmen and women is a cyclical quirk of nature.

Wales were far superior to Scotland at the weekend

But it is surely too much of a coincidence that such a scarcity should occur across the sporting arena.

For it is not just football and rugby that are in the doldrums. Despite the success of cyclist Chris Hoy, swimmer Alison Sheppard and a number of others at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Scotland's medal haul was no more impressive than that of Wales, a country with 60% of the population.

It is to the Welsh that Scotland must look for hope and inspiration.

It is not so long ago that the Welsh public were up in arms over the performances of their football and rugby teams.

Steve Hansen, in particular, as manager of the Welsh rugby team, endured months of criticism as the team lurched from one defeat to another, despite his protestations that he was trying to implement a system.

Then, all of a sudden, Wales produced two simply fantastic performances at the World Cup and Hansen seemed to be vindicated.

The respective regimes of the Scottish rugby and football teams are still new or new-ish and must be given time to try to put things right.

The short-term attitude rarely produces positive results as the most successful Scottish manager of all time, Sir Alex Ferguson, will tell you.