History OK - Conceded, But Heriot's Case Is Not Convincing. Something Like The Rest Of Stupid-6

AS I was saying, I will now take a look at Heriot's DoR Neil Meikle's Offside Line interview on how he sees Stupid-6. Again, well done to David Barnes for getting Neil's views, however, I feel he managed to neatly side-step the major issues in attempting to justify the how and why of Heriot's getting one of the “coveted?” six slots.

 

The club which gave us Andy irvine and

On playing history, how can the club of Ken Scotland, Andy Irvine and the Three Bears not get a place? It would have been ludicrous if a club which has continuously been one of the top sides in the country for the last 100-years and more and which, certainly during the last decade has always been in the title mix. That gives the “Nails” a sense of entitlement such as you see in some football clubs, even when they hit hard times: “We've always been a top club and ought to remain thus.”

Ken Scotland, had to be involved

OK, but times are changing. One of the USPs of Stupid-6 was going to be that these half dozen clubs should be beacons of excellence, driving up standards in their region. How will Heriot's achieve this? As I have argued in previous blog posts – Stupid-6, although being overseen by the LSJ and the SRU's Performance Department, is a new CLUB competition. It has been introduced on what some of us see is false premise – that it is the job of the leading clubs to better-prepare players for professional rugby.

In the amateur days, (if we take representative rugby, up to Lions level as being the equivalent of professional rugby today), this was the responsibility of the Districts. Guys like the legendary 'Hughenden Mafia' – Minto Butters, Iain Todd and Iain MacGregor were Hillhead HSFP men, but, they picked the Glasgow District XV without ever making it a condition of a place, that you played your club rugby for Hillhead. I use Glasgow as an example, because that's my patch – the same management plan worked in the other Districts.

Stupid-6 as originally conceived and sold to the clubs appeared to suggest – the six franchises would be “District-lite” - setting an example, pulling-up standards in their District, or share of a District (sorry, forgot – we're Regions rather than Districts now) and being a home for the best players in that District/Region.

To me, that laudable goal should be achieved by the SRU putting in place a workable District/Regional high performance player management scheme – which is FULLY CENTRALLY-FUNDED. There would be a clear line-management system, and clear goals established; everyone would be singing from the same hymn sheet.

But, as now seems as clear as we can ascertain from trying to look at the rather opaque costs-reporting methodology around the SRU's Performance Department – running professional rugby in Scotland is an expensive business. Only we, the clubs and clubmen who are supposed to be the SRU's main stakeholders, are not being told exactly how expensive running pro rugby is. I fear if we did know, it would scare us shitless.

Now the Performance Department wants final oversight of the new level of semi-professional rugby, but, it seems clear (or as clear as we can make out), the money isn't there in the Murrayfield biscuit tin, so they have looked for, and found, half a dozen saps prepared to bail them out – using their members' and sponsors' money.

This wheeze might have worked, had Murrayfield spread the risk around all of Scotland, ensuring we had a franchise in the North, in the Midlands, two in the vast Glasgow Region, and one each in Edinburgh and the South. Whey, in the early days of this, the Ayatollah bullishly declared: “If nobody comes forward in any Region, we may establish our own franchise.” The fact that this proud boast was never carried through on – when the North and Midlands clubs could not agree among themselves to mount a franchise bid, they were cast aside. This to me, further indicates, the SRU doesn't have the money it knows it needs to run semi-professional and professional rugby, so, they looked for six saps to bail them out.

Then, Murrayfield further fucked things up, by picking three franchises from Edinburgh.

A very-crowded sponsorship market-place

Let's look at the market-place in Edinburgh for putting money into sport, and the various sources of this funding.

• The multi-national and national companies in the capital, who still have a Head Office there; these companies, mainly in the finance market, will tend to sponsor major international and national events rather than individual clubs.
  
  
• A large Edinburgh-based company looking to sponsor a sports club will look at either Hearts or Hibs or Edinburgh Rugby – the city clubs which are regularly exposed on TV and in the media.
  
  
• Below this level, the three Edinburgh-based franchises are looking for sponsorship from companies who have someone at sponsorship-delivery decision-making level, who has a connection with that particular franchise. And at that level, they are operating in a crowded market. They are seeking sponsorship money alongside such long-established sporting names in the capital as: the Murrayfield-based ice hockey team; Edinburgh Kings Basketball Club; several lower-level football teams: Spartans, Lothian Thistle-Hutchison Vale, Edinburgh City, to name but a few; the city athletics clubs; - it's a very-crowded market-place indeed.

The Edinburgh franchise(s) which survive will be that which can best compete at that third level in the market-place. I appreciate how Heriot's gets-on is not really the concern of the Director of Rugby. However, Neil will be operating in an equally crowded market-place when it comes to player recruitment – which is a concern of his.

Before I turn to this aspect of how Stupid-6 will change things, a final thought on Heriot's franchise which was not touched-on in the interview, and, to be fair, as I said in the last paragraph, it isn't within Neil's remit. That aspect is – facilities.

At the Stupid-6 launch, Colin McCallum, Heriot's vice-president appeared to play down concerns about the facilities side of their bid.

Heriot's Colin McCallum didn't duck the serious issues at the Stupid-6 launch

• They don't own their own ground, the School does
  
  
• They don't have floodlights
  
  
• They don't have a 3G or 4G pitch
  
  
• Presumably, the Stupid-6 clubs, since they are to be beacons of excellence in setting new standards within Scottish Rugby, will need to immediately attain “Gold” Standard under Agenda-3. Where, for a start, is their Women's team to come from?
  
  
• Where's the money to overcome these problems coming from?

Now, those are three pretty big issues to resolve in the next 15-months. McCallum spoke of moving the rugby club to the Ferry Road end of Goldenacre. What has Heriot's Cricket Club got to say about that. And, might not the same NIMBY concerns which have scuppered floodlighting the present Goldenacre pitch arise with the well-heeled residents along Ferry Road?

McCallum spoke about great support from the school. What happens when some parents voice their concerns that their little Callum, or Magnus or Fraser might be disadvantaged over next-door neighbours precious Findlay, because, with precious resources at Heriot's going to supporting the Former Pupils rugby club, Callum, or Magnus or Fraser isn't getting the new state-of-the-art science or technology lab which Findlay will enjoy at Stewart's-Melville. “We don't want our son to be a professional rugger player, but we do want him to get into a very-good university; that's why we send him to you, and we feel, the school diverting funds to helping out a rugby club is disadvantaging our son.” I can see that argument coming up.

DoR Neil Meikle was not so convincing. (pic courtesy of Fotosport/David Gibson***)

Finally, in what I thought was a pretty poor espousing of his club's case – Meikle insisted, Heriot's would not be attempting to recruit from the likes of Currie and Edinburgh Accies. As we say here in the West: Aye Right!

Fair play to Neil if he and Heriot's stick to this. But, if next season, Phil Smith or the new guy shadowing him decide, they need additional resources at centre and that one of the Currie guys would fit the bill – good intentions will go out of the window. In any case, I can name at least one rival Edinburgh franchise unlikely to be so scrupulous.

But, to sum-up the Meikle interview – some good points, but, mainly PISH.