SHIT happens, as our American cousins keep saying. So, I was in no way surprised to see GHK lower Selkirk's colours in Saturday's BT Scottish Cup clash. This one always looked like a banana skin waiting to send the Souters tumbling - a struggling team, which has got into the habit of losing games, against a lesser side, used to winning, that's bad karma dude.
Of course, I feel for the many excellent people around Philiphaugh, who are surely now, more than ever, wishing this terrible season which they have endured will just end. But, fair play to GHK, although, I will be amazed if their cup campaign does not run its course in their next tie.
Meanwhile, to continue the thread from the above paragraph, we must ask ourselves when the weather Gods will relent and this dreadful season of postponements and re-arranged fixture will be over.
I note, with some alarm, that fixtures in the not-quite-basement/lower ground floor league which my own wee club inhabits, already unplayed fixtures are down to be settled in late May, a time when, once upon a time, rugby players had either decamped to the golf course or the cricket square. Mind you, by then, perhaps, pitches will be firm enough for us to see some running rugby.
CONGRATULATIONS are surely due to Stirling County and Ayr, after their successes in the Under-18 and Under-16 League Cup Finals, at BT Murrayfield on Sunday. These two clubs have long been in the vanguard of clubs giving youth rugby real backing. No club can survive and thrive these days without a well-run youth section; we need a constant supply of new blood coming into the game if it is to progress.
The problem these clubs, indeed all clubs have is the fall-off in numbers during the transition from youth to adult rugby. This is a hardy annual - at a stage between 16 and 18 a lot of previously keen young players suddenly discover that to put it crudely, it's a lot nicer and more fulfilling to put your hand between a young lady's thighs than those of a hairy-arsed prop, or to put your arm round the shoulders of a creature of the opposite sex rather than a fellow lock or front-rower; chasing girls is much more fun than chasing hopeful kicks-ahead - if you get my drift. Then, there is the realisation, a pint tastes just as good if you've walked into a bar off the street than off the pitch.
For those who do stay on in rugby, there is the culture shock of going from a star in youth rugby to being the pbi in the club game. Sunday Mini then Midi rugby is ok, you've got time to do it, it's a different matter having to rush home from work or university to train midweek, in the dark, under perhaps inadequate floodlighting. Then there is the culture shock of going from a youth first team to perhaps a club third or fourth team.
When I made the transition from, in my case school rugby to the club game, in my mid-teens, well, I reckon there was more rugby played below top club level. I joined my own wee club in its second season, we fielded two XVs every week, and three most weeks. The following season, we fielded three XVs every week, and occasionally four.
Today, the club fields two XVs every week (well, every week they can get a pitch which is fit to play on), but, whereas in our day, the third and fourth XVs usually had a pack with an average age of 30, and a back division where maybe a couple of the guys were over 21, the rest were kids, today, the equivalent third and fourth teams are the U-18s and U-16s.
There are not, today, the same number of "coarse" rugby teams there were when I was a boy. I began this portion of the blog today by mentioning Ayr. Before youth rugby took hold at Millbrae, the club was fielding - every Saturday, the 1st XV, 2nd XV, A1 XV, A2 XV and a 3rd XV, sometimes a 4th (actually 6th) XV. Today, Ayr fields a 1st XV a 2nd XV and the Millbrae XV, most of the members of which are beyond even the second flush of youth, and, that Millbrae XV has just won the West Regional Bowl.
There are guys now quite happy to stand and watch the Ayr first XV, who, even 25-years ago would have been happily playing for a XV down the club. We have to bring back social rugby to ensure the guys who are too-old for youth rugby, but, not good enough for the competitive leagues, have somewhere to go.
My playing career ended in my late 30s, playing for a team known as: "The Mean Machine"; our motto was: "Well, we won the fight", because some weeks that was all we won - but, we enjoyed ourselves. I reckon, just as some old stagers forecast would happen, when leagues were first introduced back in 1973, once it got serious, and league positions came into play, a lot of the fun went out of the game.
Even more fun went when professionalism came in, even when what is now in all but name, semi-professionalism came into the top-level club game. The fact is, if paying rugby isn't fun, it isn't worth doing.
We have to find a way of bringing back the fun element, and getting more guys simply enjoying playing the game on Saturdays.
Bring Back Coarse Rugby.
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