Once upon a time, all-conquering Australian teams would arrive in Edinburgh and immediately frighten the locals, with Scotland not having come anywhere near them since 1982. Thrashings have been regular.
This time around, many of the local bookies have Scotland as favourites - largely because they have not been beaten at home this year, a record that includes Six Nations wins over France and England. Also, predicted high winds on match day will help the Scots.
Gone are the days when Scottish players and officials treated the Wallabies with outright respect. Now, they believe the visitors are vulnerable.
Hadden said: "Australia are the side who have embarrassed us the most in recent times. I went back to have a look at how embarrassing it actually had been, and discovered since we last beat them in 1982, they have only failed to score over 30 points twice - and that's when they scored 27 and 29.
"So there's been a really long sequence of embarrassing defeats from Australia. I was there myself in 1989, and felt at the time, 'How could we ever beat Australia?"
"Since then, a lot of good things have happened in Scotland rugby. We've got to a stage now where I believe we are going into this game this weekend with a genuine opportunity to take a famous scalp for us in the build-up to the World Cup. What we have done is narrowed the gap that had been developing between the southern hemisphere and northern hemisphere teams. We've approached it a slightly different way, and we are now tougher to beat than we used to be."
To add to the air of confidence, Hadden was reluctant to discuss the relative merits of certain Scottish players because there were several Australian journalists in the room. For good reason, Scotland's Test five-eighth, Dan Parks, was similarly reserved. After all, he is an Australian, and knows the dangers of poking away too much at the Wallabies' pride. They do know how to bite hard.
Nonetheless, Parks, who moved from the Easts club in Sydney to Glasgow in 2003 because of a lack of Super 12 opportunities, is adamant Scotland are on the rise, and in recent times have become a far more formidable team.
"We have improved a lot since the last time we played Australia, and I hope that will count for something," said Parks, who has played against the Wallabies four times in the Scottish colours.
"But we are under no illusions of how tough it is going to be. The problem with playing Australia is that they always seem to know what you are going to be doing. They are always very organised, but hopefully we can come up with a few new things and try to catch them out.
"I know we have definitely got better. The belief has got gradually better and better in this squad, with the France and England defeats during the Six Nations being a pretty big deal.
"Hopefully, this will be the week we again cause an upset. We know it has been a tough tour for them, and we want to make it tougher for them."