The Scrums Are Better - But Could Be Better Still

THIS blog has long argued - the biggest problem facing 21st century Rugby Union is its laws and the way they are policed by referees. It has long been understood that, in the professional game, teams play the referee rather than the laws - wrong, wrong, wrong; laws should be absolute and enforced universally across the entire game.

 

On Friday night, for instance, Glasgow, for all they played badly and didn't show the gallusness and chutzpah which they had displayed since the season started, were cheated out of possible victory by a Munster side, and in particular skipper Doncha O'Callaghan, who played the Welsh referee, Mr Davies, far better than Glasgow.

 

To be fair, Mr Davies didn't actually do too-much wrong, in terms of his application of the Laws. Brilliant solo effort though it was, the Munster try should never have been allowed - the scrum feed was squint, there was strong indication of a hand being used to hook the ball back and, just maybe, Glasgow ought to have made more of a fuss than they did at the time.

 

But, these incidents tend to even themselves out; what did grate was the way Mr Davies allowed O'Callaghan to referee the game - even at his football peak, Willie Miller never got away with half as much as big Doncha did at Scotstoun.

 

A strong referee would have told O'Callaghan, midway through the first half: "You, get out of my face, shut up and play and if you complain again, you'll have ten minutes to think about it;" - then acted.

 

But no, Mr Davies allowed the big lock to run the game - which made it all the more galling that big Al Kellock, a man who could have happily gone head-to-head with O'Callaghan in the awkward squad, wasn't there to remind the referee of his obligations to run the game fairly.

 

I reckon O'Callaghan successfully talked about a couple of minutes out of the Munster yellow-card. Also, the Irish side cheated outrageously at the breakdown and at the scrum and got away with it. It left a bitter taste.

 

 

 

NOW we come to another associated point. The new engagement protocol at set scrums has, by and large, worked. However, the fall-out from the old: "crouch, touch, pause, engage" etc protocol remains.

 

In particular, we have bred a generation of hookers who, to put it bluntly - don't know how to hook. Last week, watching the Ayr pack being systematically destroyed by a superior Cornish Pirates outfit, who simply pushed them off their own ball every time, I caught the eye of a fellow old boy of the Front Five Club. We two old donkeys said, as one: "Channel One ball", before releasing, this is a concept which the present generation of donkeys have never heard of.

 

It gets worse, after Saturday's Ayr v Stirling County match, I was in the company of four guys who effectively have PhDs in the dark arts of the scrummage: County legend "Muff" Scobie, Ayr Director of Rugby Jock Craig and that one-man wrecking ball of a disruptive tight-head, Johnny Burston and Gordon Strachan, a man who, as a Dickinson Disciple, knows all about scrummaging.

 

Craig, the only one still anywhere near the coal-face said: "I've tried to show these young guys how the scrum works when the hooker has to hook, but, they've come through the Glasgow/SRU system, so, they have been brain-washed into believing that what they are doing is correct, which it isn't.

 

"The whole front row landscape has been changed by the new: "Crouch, bind, engage" rule, but, they are not adapting. It's very frustrating.

 

There were a couple of occasions on Saturday when Ayr hooker Fergus Scott, who is in the Glasgow development programme, struck perfectly, but the ball rebounded off his loose-head's inside leg and into the County second row. That has to be bad footplacement - had that been right, Ayr would have had perfect Channel One Ball with which to attack.

 

Here in Scotland we cannot match the behemoths in England, so, we have to be smarter and I don't think, at this juncture, Murrayfield and Scotstoun are being all that smart. 

Good Squad, But, Beware The Nipponese Threat

SCOTTIE has spoken and we now know the 40-man training squad, from which our match-day squads for the Autumn internationals will come. Few surprises in the squad, right enough; the big guns will in all probability be kept back for the Aussie and Saffers games, but, the experiences which befell Wales on-tour in the summer should guard against throwing-in too-many players against the Japanese.

 

I am delighted to see Jonny Gray and Mark Bennett getting the nod, but would also like to have seen Gordie Reid, whose star has waned somewhat ont he back of a couple of heavy head knocks, being handed a wee confidence-booster by his inclusion. For me, he's a better loose-head than Alastair Dickinson.

 

But, that's personal preference with a hint of bias and there are always arguments about selection.

 

Speaking of arguments, somewhat belatedly that terrible newspaper the Mail on Sunday has sparked-off some debate in Englandshire about head injuries in rugby; something we Celtis have been aware of for far longer. I understand the lawyers at the IRB would rather we didn't talk about this, but, that's always the way with lawyers.

 

We cannot be too-careful where the players' long-term health is concerned and I hope the debate continues and we get a better protocol in place than at present.

 

Another thing which the IRB MUST, MUST, MUST, get a grip of is refereeing standards. So-many games today seem to turn on the official's interpretation of events and that isn't good for any sport.

 

The new scrum laws seem to be working well-enough, although, the Autumn Tests will give us a better idea of exactly how well they are working. I do fell, however, that the initial zeal with which crooked scrum feeding was cracked down upon has eased somewhat, or does this simply reinforce what we have always thought - scrum-halves will always push the boundaries?

 

I still reckon for rugby to really become as good as it could be, we have to go back to proper rucking, with a demand that the ball be played with at least one foot in rucks. Cut out handling ont he ground, and go back to basics. Yes, initially, one or two thugs will be less than careful with boot placement, but, with TV replays and citings at the top end, the bad apples will be quickly rooted out and, hopefully, we will see a faster, better game.

 

Speaking of a better game. As I suspected they would, the Welsh regions have, albeit belatedly, thrown their lot in with the Welsh clubs in the battle for the soul of the European game. The WRU are making noises about objecting, but, here too, a few more blandishments in their ears from the money men across the Severn and they too will cave-in.

The Old Farts running the six Unions MUST find their cojones and stand-up to the English pirates seeking to overthrow the status quo - or, we're awe doomed, doomed ah tell ye.

 

 

Time To Sort Ourselves Out In Professional Rugby

I HAVE always believe Jim Telfer got it right, when he (allegedly) pushed through the idea of Scotland going to two full-time professional teams, playing in the Celtic/Italian league and in Europe.

 

Hard though it has been for some people to accept, Telfer's dictum that, you need a potential half-million strong fan base for a professional team to survive, is correct. The Borders may be the heartland of Scottish Rugby, but, economically, far less emotionally, where the rugby public will turn out in all weathers (allbeit these days in diminished numbers) to watch the toon team, but wouldn't cross the road to watch a Borders pro side - and they certainly, if from Hawick, Melrose, Kelso, Selkirk, Langholm or anywhere else, wouldn't head for Netherdale, in case they put a penny in Gala's pocket.

 

Just as, in football, without managerial geniuses such as Fergie or the crabbitist of the McLean brothers, the rest cannot hope to match the Old Firm in Europe, in rugby, even our biggest club sides would be too-wee to compete, unless some big-hearted billionaire rugby fanatic fancied lightening his wallet.

 

So, I think we are stuck with two pro teams for the immediate future. However, we still haven't got the under-pinning right. I believe in the RBS Premiership, not least because, while its football near-equivalent, the SOFL Premiership is all about, at the moment: "who's going to be second" - to become: "Who's going to be third", if ever Rangers get their act together; in rugby, this is a terrific competition, in which any team can potentially beat any other team.

 

However, I feel the SRU still hasn't cottoned onto just how good a competition it is, and doesn't give it enough praise or promotion.

 

That said, as was shown, somewhat starkly, at the weekend - for all the effort put in by our semi-professional amateurs from the Premiership (semi-professional amateurs, by the way, is not an oxymoron - can anyone else come up with a better description for our Premiership players?), against the full-timers fromEngland's second tier, they were badly mauled. The gap is there and it is growing. Murrayfield minds  have to put in some hard thinking to find a way of, initially, stopping the gap from growing, and, in the longer term, narrowing and indeed closing it.

 

We have to have a system whereby players from the likes of Ayr, Hawks, Gala, Hawick, Melrose and Heriot's, and the rest, can seamlessly step-up if needed, to Edinburgh or the Warriors, while those full-time pros not in any given match-day squad, can be kept working in the Premiership.

 

This, of course, will take money; and that's another area of discord. I heard one club president, who knows his way around a balance sheet, at the weekend waxing less than lyrical about the fact that the second-tier RFU member side which had just inflicted a big beating on his Scottish side received between £250,000 and £500,000 per annum from the RFU - the Scottish side gets nothing from Murrayfield.

 

OK, there is no way Murrayfield could hand-out anything like that sum to the 12 Premiership teams, but, a wee bit more largesse - provided it was channeled into developing Scottish players, rather than recruiting overseas mercenaries - just might prevent future humpings such as we saw at the weekend.

 

In case anyone hasn't noticed in the four RFU Sides v SRU Sides British & Irish Cup ties at the weekend, the aggregate score was 232-47 in favour of the sides which play south of the Solway.

 

Money itself will not close that gap, but, money and energy, properly targetted and spent, will, in the long run.

 

Can we please stop being Scottish, end the inter-clan warfare and sniping and pull together for the common good? The benefits will spread downwards.

 

To do nothing, to guddle along as we have been since professionalism arrived, will not do either.

Time To Sort-Out Professional Player Availability SRU

INCLUDING their "development" professionals, basically younger players, who admittedly spend most of their time actually playing in the RBS Premiership, Edinburgh and Glasgow employ some 110 full-time, professional rugby players - Edinburgh's web site lists 24 backs and 34 forwards; Glasgow's lists 22 backs and 30 forwards.

At any given time, obviously given the physical demands of professional rugby, both clubs will have a number of players unavailable through injury - Glasgow, for instance, listed eight unavailable players prior to their opening Heineken Cup clash with Toulon. Edinburgh didn't list their injured players, but, from memory, they also had some eight-to-ten guys on the injured list.

So, from an initial pool of 110 potential players, we pick two match-day squads of 23 players for each club - 46 players; add the 16 injured guys - 62 players, leaving 38 guys kicking their heels last Saturday.

How many of these players played in the next-most-important games over the weekend - the four British & Irish Cup ties? I know for instance that Ayr had George Hunter, D'Arcy Rae, Fergus Scott and Finn Russell in their squad in Jersey - but, these guys are all development players, more-often seen in Ayr's pink and black than in Glasgow's blue and white. A fifth Ayr development player, teenager Gavin Lowe, didn't even make the Ayr match-day squad.

The Ayr pack got a hiding from a big Jersey eight, who were formidable in the scrums, had a well-oiled rolling maul (albeit a typically English one where "truck and trailer" seems to be part and  parcel of what is allowed) and, they gave Ayr a doing, even before Ayr had two forwards - Andy Dunlop and Hunter - red-carded.

Hunter, who, I am sad to say, looks with each passing season like a forward who, being too-slow for the back row and too-wee for the second, has been turned into a tight-head prop, a position for which he is the wrong shape, simply couldn't cope with the pressure put on him.

How much more-even might the scrums in Jersey have been, had Ayr had Nick Cox available? I don't see the crouching clergyman being turned-over as Hunter was. Perhaps, with Cox absent, Ayr felt Hunter might cope; maybe they declined to ask Glasgow for a spare prop; perhaps Hunter was the only available Glasgow tight-head.

Just the same, had they had Gordon Reid, who although drafted to former club Ayr for the B&I Cup, was instead propping for Aberdeen GSFP in the RBS Premiership - the pressure he would have put on the Jersey front row just might have turned the tide.

My point is - does the SRU have a pecking order as regards where the guys whose wages they pay play when not needed by the two pro sides? It seems strange to me that, given all the mumping and moaning we get from the club sides about professional player availablility on a weekly basis in the RBS, it would seem strange to suddenly let professionals play in the Premiership, when they would have surely been better employed in the B&I Cup.
Let's sort-out a pecking order, designed to be for the best for Scottish rugby; let's get a clear and concise protocol in place which allows our club sides to best represent Scotland in the B&I Cup, a competition which is surely more-important than the purely domestic albeit very good Premiership.

 

Time The Shark Bit The Opposition

MUCH as I love John Jefferies - old JJ, the White Shark - I fear he really has to withdraw his digit and set to work, in his capacity as chairman of the IRB's refereeing committee.

 

I appreciate the real work on referees is supposed to be done by Joel Jutge, but, he is supposed to work under the authority of JJ and his committee - who really must get a grip on the standards of refereeing.

 

Now we Scots, allegedly, are the world experts on bad referees, because we have so-many in Scottish rugby. However, I feel this season the standard in domestic rugby in Scotland has risen markedly, it is now a long time since I've had a chippy e-mail from anyone within the SRU's pr department taking me to task for something I have written about Scottish referees. It's a bloody hard job, I've tried it once or twice but could never do it long-term, so I have every sympathy with our under-fire officials.

 

But, that sympathy dies when, as I witnessed on Jersey on Saturday, during the Jersey v Ayr British & Irish Cup tie, you see what I could only interpret as institutionalised bias against the Scottish side - who barely got a decision from young Welsh referee Dan Jones and his two equally out of their depth English touch judges.

 

Like almost everyone who was there from Ayr, I am convinced, had Ayr not had two men sent off, they would have won. George Hunter's red card, for a second technical offence, was perhaps, under the letter of the law justified, but, throughout the game you sensed, if Ayr were to be pinged for something, the same offence by Jersey would pass unpunished. As one Ayr official said: "All you ask is even-handedness and we didn't get that".

 

The sending-off of Andy Dunlop, albeit on the say-so of one of the English touch judges, was a disgrace. Sure, "Dunny" stuck one on a Jersey forward, but, only after said Jersey player had entered a ruck from the side - the Ayr side - unpunished. Under such circumstances, he (the Jersey guy) was surely expecting to be whacked.

 

Now, this English touch judge - having failed to spot a six foot-five, 17-stone, Jersey player infringing, somehow managed not to miss "Dunny's" punch and recommended a red card. A shocking decision. Had he divulged the full facts to the ref, and had the ref then handed yellows to both "Dunny" and the jersey boy, before giving jersey a penalty, nobody would have complained - but no, big stick to the Scottish team, pat on the head to the other side.

 

This is a regular feature of life in the Pro12; how often have we seen games inwhich anything goes - until the Scottish team infringes, whereupon, it's a penalty. This is now getting beyond a joke and it is time we Scots did something about it.

 

I have suggested before, if a Scottish team playing a cross-border match feels agrieved by the referee, then, why not run a couple of forwards off a ruck and into him, then apologise - and keep doing it until he wakes up to the fact his bias is showing. It might work. Otherwise, why doesn't a captain tell the referee: "Either you start giving us a fair crack of the whip, or we are walking off and blaming you".

 

No use being the good guys if we are repeatedly going to be shafted for our trouble.

 

And maybe JJ should get one or two Scottish referees promoted to the elite level, whereupon, our guys could start giving gratuitous penalties and decisions against our Welsh cousins, which would serve them right. 

A Change Of Scene -Let's Hope We Enjoy The Trip

THIS is a crucial weekend and the start of a vital period of games for Glasgow and Edinburgh in the Heineken Cup, and for Ayr, Gala, Edinburgh Accies and Stirling County in the British & Irish Cup.

With all the political posturing going on around the Heineken, mostly driven by the self-interest of the English Premiership clubs and their paymasters, Glasgow and Edinburgh MUST put on a show. I have no fears around Glasgow, with the quality of player in their squad and their current form, they need fear nobody; but, alas, I have genuine fears around Edinburgh. They could be in for an embarrassing time and, make no mistake, if either or both of our representatives don't at least compete until the end of the group stages, it will be grist to the mill of English interests.

In the longer run, I fear compromise will dictate that only a top-half finish in the Rabo in future years will keep a Scottish presence in the Heineken. Don't worry, the much-hyped English-run replacement will not happen - if the Italian, Irish and Scottish Unions maintain enough pressure to keep the Welsh onside, and, if the FFR's nerve holds in the face of their top clubs' seeming temporary failure to mistrust perfidious Albion - and, the biggest if of all - if the likes of Fran Cotton and Bill Beaumont remember how hard they were as players and drag their clubs into line.

Again, looking long-term; I have to ask: would a season in the Amlin Challenge Cup be that bad for one or other of our professional sides? I think not. Sure, it would be better to have both in the Heineken, but, particularly given restoring Edinburgh looks like being more than a one-season challenge, maybe a couple of seasons in the lesser European arena would be a good thing for this troubled club.

What would also be good for Edinburgh would be finding a settled stand-off. To his credit, Alan Solomons seems to be giving Harry Leonard every chance to fit into the 10 jersey, but, he needs to be challenged.

If young Heathcote harbours genuine Scottish ambitions, he should get out of Bath and up to Edinburgh as quickly as he possibly can. Then there is this week's hot number, Tommy Allen. Murrayfield must decide, in the next couple of weeks, to reel him into our pro set-up, or lose him to the Italians. The question is - is he the real deal or not?

If so, go get him; which means deciding, is he a better long-term bet than Heathcote, Leonard, Finn Russell, Alex Blair or Gregor Hunter? It's not as if he's the only young, promising stand-off on the horizon.

I also fear, with all the broo-ha about him and, clearly since he has a competent agent, Murrayfield might be stampeded into making him an offer which might be too-high. Promise is all very well, but, the bars of Scottish clubs are awash with Might Bes, who never delivered.

As for the four B&I Cup sides. I expect Ayr and Gala, who have been there before, to make the most-telling contributions to any Scottish feel-good effect which might accrue, but wouldn't write-off the youthful enthusiasm around Raeburn Place and Bridgehaugh.

But, even with their drafted fringe professionals, our four representatives face really tough matches against better-funded opponents from elsewhere in these islands. As with our pro teams, however, they may well surprise a few along the way.

Let's enjoy the ride, even though it might be a roller-coaster one.

Wanted - Nay Needed - a Hawick Resurgence

THE first time I saw a full Hawick side at Millbrae, it was a big day for Ayr. This was in the early 1980s, Ayr had just, for the first time, made it into the top division of the rugby leagues and, the arrival of The Green Machine, was a big thing for the Alloway regulars.

 

Even the way they came out to warm-up was different. None of this players wandering out in dribs and drabs - they came out in team formation and they went through a full-on, structured warm-up. Ayr were almost beaten there and then, however, considering the men in green included some of the guys who were inducted into the Hawick Dream Team just last week, anything else would have been inconceivable.

 

Today's Hawick squad doesn't have a Renwick-Cranston combination in the centre, they don't have a Colin Deans at hooker, or big Toomba in the second row. Hawick always used to have a great back row, not any more.

 

Their fall is sad; sure, things are dire on the jobs front in Hawick, the local economy is in a state of collapse against which the local politicians are all but powerless; but, if perhaps not to the same extent as in the example I am about to refer to - Hawick's current travails are, to an extent, self-inflicted.

 

I admit here, I don't know all the ins and outs, but, from what we ootsiders understand - no longer is the Green Jersey the symbol of Hawick's soul. Where once young players such as Renwick, Deans, Cranston, Derek Grant, Stevie or the Blessed McLaren were aware - once they pulled on that green shirt, they weren't playing for themselves, they were playing for "the Toon", today - that intensity, the focus of local rugby, isn't just on The Greens.

 

We hear of the men who run the lesser teams - sides with long and distinguished records of their own, but, always in the past, sides which existed as much to underpin the Greens, as in their own right, knew their place; Hawick - the Toon team - came first. Today, these men are less-inclined to view their clus as subsidiary to The Greens - and, this has hurt Hawick.

 

We hear of lesser Borders sides, but from towns not as hard-hit by the recession as Hawick, now able to attract Hawick youngsters to do the once unthinkable and leave Hawick to play elsewhere in the Borders.

 

We hear, most-worryingly, of the once myopic concentration on The Greens, eroding.

 

Phil Leck came to Hawick from a distinguished career with the Sale Academy, where he produced several future England internationalists. Here is a man who knows all about developing young players to  realise their potential. Today, as he admits, he is as much an unemployment bureau manager as coach, as he struggles to find jobs for promising young players, to keep them in Hawick.

 

I am convinced, if Hawick could re-discover the "all for one and one for all" approach which served the toon so-well over so many years, then, sometime soon, a new Green Machine will be built to challenge at the top of the club game in Scotland.

 

And, when that day arrives, it will be to the benefit of Scottish Rugby.

 

Come on Hawick - give Phil Leck the tools, he can surely do the job.

 

Ayr is putting in place the sort of Academy set-up Leck would like to see in Hawick. This in an area where the round ball is still king. Just imagine what Leck might achieve in Hawick, with the right backing from the toon.