On Sober Reflection - The Plan Is A Wee Bit Back To The Future

BACK IN the days of amateur rugby in Scotland, there was a progression towards the international team. At its most extreme level, a potentially-great rugby players might be spotted playing for a junior club; he would then be picked for the District Union XV.

Big Broon - the perfect example of old-style player progression

If he showed continued potential there, he would be “head-hunted” (the bigger club's view) or “poached” (his own wee club's view), to a “senior” club. If he continued to do the business, he would be picked for the District team in the Inter-District Championship, where, if he looked the part, he would find himself in one of the teams in the annual International Trial, then, form and fitness being OK, into the full Scotland team.

Back then, there were five District teams – Edinburgh, the Exiles, North and Midlands, Glasgow and the South. I would like to think the six Semi-Professional franchises, which the SRU wish to bring-in will be seen as six “District” sides – given the Murrayfield “blazers” are looking at the amateur clubs below them as having an element of “feeder” clubs about them.

The SRU hopes to see one franchise in Edinburgh, another in Glasgow, a third in the South and a fourth in the North and Midlands, or “Caledonia” as it has become, leaving two franchises open to offers from elsewhere.

If Caledonia could be split back to its former two sub-District form we could well see one team in Aberdeen, and another in Dundee – or elsewhere in the old Midland District.

We have been being told for a year or two that there is the potential for a full professional side to be based in Aberdeen. I have my doubts about this, but, surely the Granite City could support one of these proposed franchises. Efforts to form a unified Aberdeen “super club” broke down earlier this year – here is the chance for Aberdeen's rugby team to put-up or shut-up.

If they can somehow overcome the obstacles and make it happen, it will be great for rugby in that part of Scotland, and throughout the country.

I have my doubts about a Dundee franchise, more-so because, I feel, if the club, which has come so far, wants to apply for a franchise, then Stirling County should be the base for the “Midlands” franchise.

Another club with most of the infrastructure in place to sustain a franchise is Ayr, while, surely Glasgow Hawks is the obvious core club for the main Glasgow franchise. Mark Dodson's outlining of how the SRU thinks the franchises will work, at yesterday's agm, reads very like the original thinking behind the formation of Hawks back in 1997.

Mark Dodson's plan will resonate with the Hawks

As I said in yesterday's post – the notion of the Borders clubs putting aside their age-old rivalries and reforming the South team as the franchise in the traditional heartland of Scottish rugby is exciting.

Veteran Borders rugby men in each of the old toons – Galashiels, Hawick, Jedburgh, Kelso, Langholm, Melrose and Selkirk – all tell you the same sad story: “The toon's broken and skint”. I honestly doubt if any one of these proud towns could meet the bottom line financial requirements for a franchise, although, with the money they make each year from their Sevens, Melrose might get close.

But, a combined Borders bid, resurrecting the old South of Scotland team – well, surely – if the local rivalries and jealousies could be worked through - that would work – more so if home matches were rotated around the grounds.

I have one major concern. The SRU plans call for a three-division national league, at a level below the six franchises. The six new franchises will be under-pinned by a 12-club amateur league, somewhere like the present-day Premiership, with three 12-club National Leagues below that.

For me, that is too-many clubs playing at a national, Scotland-wide level. Scottish football only has 42 senior clubs, and that is too-many. The Scottish football community is a lot larger than the Scottish rugby community, so, to have a higher number of rugby clubs – 54 in all - playing at a Scotland-wide level is a nonsense.

I would prefer to see a single national league, with beefed-up District leagues below that. This makes far-more sense and is more in tune with the realities of present-day Scottish rugby.

There is one major snag to all these changes, however. And that is the sense of entitlement of too-many clubs which, in spite of evidence to the contrary in recent seasons, still believe they are a “big” club.

Bad enough that some of them who still think they are front-line clubs will, under the new scheme, be reduced to what would be Level Three in Scottish Rugby

• Level One – Edinburgh and Glasgow.
• Level Two - the “Super Six”.
• Level Three - the National League.

They will maybe have to be battered down into submission to accept “demotion” to what would in reality be Level Four – District Leagues.

I can remember the acres of Scandinavian trees which were felled to feed the Scottish newspapers of the 1970s, after the SRU announced they would indeed sanction an official Scottish Championship, to replace the time-honoured Unofficial “Newspaper” Championship.

The Herald and Scotsman ran lengthy pieces on it. Why even the old Scottish Daily Express – which believe it or not was a serious, big-selling paper back then – ran lengthy pieces on the issue, by the much-missed Brian Meek.

The late Brian Meek - gave the old Express gravitas on rugby

That was a subject which created even more of a stooshie than the weekend's announcement. One of the points the SRU made strongly at the time was that the way the league was structured, it would allow for long-established fixtures to continue to be played, even if the participating sides were in different divisions of the new official leagues.

Under the new proposals, Scotland's small cadre of professional class players will still mainly be employed by the SRU, playing for the two professional sides – who will also have first dibs on the best of our young players.

The next level of talent – the Academy graduates who didn't quite train-on to make the top flight, plus the kids from the age group teams who are maybe late developers, or couldn't quite hack it to earn a full-time contract, they will be with the Super Six franchises, leaving the rest, the keen rugby players who maybe lack the X-factor, or the drive to be full or part-time pros, they will still have an outlet at amateur club level.

If the clubs themselves perhaps look at club level rugby as an equivalent of Junior Football; sell the local rivalries, get the local papers involved – this new plan has a chance.

Of course there are potential pitfalls, a lot of these will have to be worked through, BUT, and it certainly has to be a big but, with goodwill on all sides, if, just for once, we can avoid AYE BEENISM, this plan may guarantee Scottish rugby, at all levels, a bright future.

Let the discussion, the in-fighting and the horse-trading begin.

David Barnes - excellent coverage big man

By the way, kudos to big David Barnes for his magnificent dissertation on the Super Six proposals on his excellent “The Offside Line” website, and in his Scotsman piece – I commend both strongly.

As for The once-mighty Herald's coverage of this important matter – what coverage?

Oh my Downie and McMurtrie long ago.