Rennie Guides Chiefs Into Knock-Out Stages

DAVE RENNIE'S arrival to take-up his new post as Glasgow Warriors' Head Coach might yet be a last-minute one. His Waikato Chiefs New Zealand team last night qualified for the Super Rugby quarter-finals, and a long haul to Cape Town to face the Stormers. Win that, they'll be in the semi-finals, and anything can happen.

 Dave Rennie

By going to Cape Town, Coach Rennie will have an early meeting with two of his new Warriors' charges, for centre Huw Jones and prop Oli Kebble both play for the Stormers, although, both are currently injured – Jones has a hamstring problem, Kebble a groin strain.

 Oli Kebble - nursing a groin strain

Rennie will, however, be in-situ for the Warriors' pre-season opener against Northampton Saints, at Stirling County's Bridgehaugh.

It was interesting this week to read that Warriors have sold 4500 season tickets for Scotstoun for the coming campaign – this is fantastic going for a team which has literally been built from nothing, and clearly makes them Glasgow's third-biggst sports side, behind the Old Firm – whose Unique Selling Point has little to do with sport, some say!!

Warriors' TV this week had an interesting interview with Rennie's Number Two, Kiwi Jason O'Halloran, a man who is still very much an unknown to the mass of the Glasgow rugby public. He and Rennie go back a long way, however, and he clearly, like Rennie, knows his stuff.

Jason O'Halloran

Edinburgh Rugby also released a similar interview this week, with incoming Head Coach Richard Cockerill. Everyone knows, the combative former Leicester man has taken-on a huge job there, but, given his background, he just might, finally, be the guy to take the long under-performing Edinburgh franchise forward.

I sense a huge year coming-up for our two professional clubs.

I WISH, oh how I wish, I could forecast the same for our under-appreciated BT Premiership. The usual suspects will be up there at the top of the table – Ayr, Melrose, Heriot's, Currie and Hawks; but, there is a lack of depth to the table.

With the various clubs only now getting into pre-season mode, there is not a lot of news coming out of the grounds, but, the new campaign will be upon us soon enough.

It was disappointing this week to see that the SRU has again failed to put our leading sides forward for British and Irish Cup places. I know, our past record, with Ayr the only Scottish side ever to make the knock-out phases, is not good, but, I do wish the Murrayfield Mafia would have a bit of confidence in our top clubs.

No scrap that – I wish they would even NOTICE our top clubs. Has anyone ever seen the Lesser-Spotted Johnson at a club game? I certainly have not. Does he even know we have a club game in Scotland?

 Have you ever spotted this rarely-seen creature at a club game?

Our top clubs, bolstered by the fringe professionals who struggle for game time with Glasgow and Edinburgh could, I am convinced, put up a good showing in the B&I Cup – why will the SRU not trust them?

It is all very well hiring top coaches like Rennie and Cockerill for the two pro sides, but, these clubs need under-pinning by a healthy club game, and, for too long, the SRU has, for my money, neglected its grass roots. This, if allowed to continue, can only, in time, lead us back to the bad old days.

ALLAN MASSIE'S Saturday rugby essay on The Scotsman's sports pages is essential reading. Mr Massie's writings are always erudite and he really cares about rugby, and cricket, on which he is also worth the purchase price of the paper. Such a pity his son did not inherit as-much of his father's journalistic ability.

But, for once, I found myself at odds with Allan this morning, when he suggested he perhaps owed Warren Gatland an apology, since, like most Scots rugby fans, he was less-than-impressed with the Kiwi's stewardship of the Lions, and his apparent disdain for Scottish talent.

Naw Allan, I am convinced, Gatland has at the very least a blind-spot for Scottish rugby talent and we will never get a fair chance at Lions selection for as long as he is Head Coach.

With competent referees in the Second and Third Tests, the All Blacks would have won the series 3-0, that is my view, it will be difficult, if not impossible to change this.

A FINAL word on the 2017 Lions. With the news that Kyle Sinckler was arrested in Auckland following the Third Test, I have to ask: what do they put in the water in that charming city which so disagrees with English rugby players.

If you think back to the 2011 Rugby World Cup, did not the red-top Rottweilers from Fleet Street's finest have the time of their lives chronicling the misdemeanours of the England squad whenever they hit the bright lights of Auckland?

Maybe the bars of that fair city should have prominently-displayed: “No Poms” signs posted outside.

I FORECAST culture shock, when I had confirmed the news that big Gordy Reid was swapping the joys of Mossblown – the Ayrshire mining village from whence my late wife's fore-bearers sprung – for the outskirts of London and London Irish.

But, the reality was even worse than imagined. No sooner had big Gordy landed in his new residence in Walton-on-Thames than he discovered, he could not get sliced sausage, tottie scones, haggis or, heavens to Betsy – Irn-Bru locally.

 Gordy Reid - culture shock and food deprivation in South London

But, as he tweeted last week, all is now well, his Mum Pat hurried south with the necessary supplies.

Gordy might well make contact with Bill “Gulliver” Cuthbertson, these many years a Harlequin, but still very much the rough diamond we knew and loved from his days with Marr and Kilmarnock.

If anyone knows where to get the staples of a Scottish “donkey's” diet around the metropolis, it will be big Cubby.

And, if all else fails. surely with his well-known and oft-confessed love of all things Scottish, Mr Al Fayed stocks the necessary food in the Harrod's Food Hall – albeit for the price of an arm and a leg.