Let's Hear More About The Club Game

SLOWLY, ever so slowly, things are stirring as season 2015-16 approaches. Our extended World Cup squad is back at Murrayfield, and working diligently towards 23 September, when their campaign kicks-off in Gloucester. The Edinburgh and Glasgow shadow squads are in pre-season training, why, even our top amateur club sides are starting to get back into pre-season mode.

Back in the Jurassic period, when my contemporaries and I used our 80 minutes on a Saturday afternoon as a means of working-up a thirst for Saturday night, we never contemplated re-season training until, at the very least, the final putt had dropped in that year's Open Championship. And that was only for the hard-core fitness fanatics.

Today, some clubs are back in training even before Andy Murray had served his first ball at Wimbledon. Mind you, the advent of professionalism has, as I have said in the past, led to a stretching of the season. There is a greater time commitment, even at the highest club level, than there was in the past.

It is now possible for a BT Premiership campaign to stretch from August of one year, to May of the next, I can recall, back in the early 1970s, when the SRU introduced the  first national league there was much discussion about retaining traditional fixtures, and the season was structured in such a way that long-established rivalries such as Glasgow Accies v Heriot's would be retained, even if the clubs were in different divisions. You rarely see a friendly played these days, outwith pre-season.

And there's another thing; clubs are now playing full-scale matches in August, in my young days, the a5-a-side season lasted 1 September to 30 April, no exceptions.

Back then of course, what was happening around West of Scotland, or Watsonians, or Langholm or Gordonians was news-worthy nationally. This is no longer the case. The bulk of what is written and broadcast about rugby in Scotland concerns our two professional clubs, long-established clubs such as Melrose, Hawick, Heriot's or Edinburgh Accies rarely hit the back pages - far-less the newer kids on the block, such as Ayr, Currie or Stirling County.

Gary Heatly does his bit with his pieces for The Herald and The Scotsman, but, I would love to see a return to what used to be the case, in football, whereby The Herald and The Scotsman both had dedicated writers covering the lower divisions in the senior game.

I reckon, we should know who is making waves in the Premiership and the two National Leagues at least. Scotland's two "serious" papers are bleeding readers of their print editions - while, certainly with The Scotsman, their on-line versions, although well-read, are becoming the electronic homes of the people who wrote in green ink.

Let's have serious coverage of and discourse about, the burgeoning club scene in Scotland, it just might keep Scottish rugby vibrant.

AS an aside to this, earlier this week, whilst tidying-up my office, on of my old cuttings books fell off the shelf and landed, open, on the floor. When I picked it up, I glanced at the page, which contained cuttings of mind from 1989.

I was back then, single-handedly, covering more local rugby, in greater depth, than today's journalists on the same local paper. I had forgotten just how much rugby I covered back then.

Mind you, there was a lot more rugby played back then. My own local club fielded three XVs every week, plus a full range of mini and midi teams on Sundays. Thankfully, the number of kids playing has held-up well, indeed, might have increased, but, the club today struggles to field two XVs on a Saturday - which beggars the question, why do so-many kids fail to make the transition from Under-18 to adult rugby?

A question there for the brains trust at Murrayfield to get their teeth into.

I HAVE just finished one of my Fathers' Day presents - a copy of Donald McCrae's excellent tome: 'Winter Colours', a thick book which covers the game's 20-year journey from amateurism to full-scale professionalism.

McCrae, one of the best writers about sport in the world today, is South African by birth, but long resident in London. Given his back-ground, as a "Rooseneck" - a South African of British rather than Boer extraction, he can be forgiven for devoting most of the book to South Africa, New Zealand and England. However, the fact that very few Scots get a mention, or were even interviewed for it, perhaps indicate where we stand in the grand scheme of rugby things.

He does, however, in interviews with Gregor Townsend, back in the day when Toony was still playing, give indications of how Townsend, the player, would evolve into Townsend the coach. Also, in his responses to McCrae's questions, Townsend, even a decade ago, gave pointers to how his Glasgow side would eventually play.

Not a lot of Scottish content, but, still a terrific book.