Missing In Action - The Mainstream Rugby Media

IT MIGHT BE that, even after my Big Angel of an over-qualified nurse-daughter finally has me, kicking and screaming, packed off to the nursing home from Hell she says she has picked out for me, someone else will take up the cudgels against the total failing of the mainstream Scottish media in matters SRU.

According to one weel-kent Borders rugby man, I have already written the equivalent of a “door-stop” book on Stupid-6 and Agenda-3, since this issue emerged from the 2017 AGM – ten months ago. But, if you get your rugby fix from the traditional mainstream media outlets, you'd think I have been pedalling “fake news” over all those blog posts.

You count on the fingers of one hand, the number of times the guys at Scotland on Sunday and The Scotsman have mentioned this hottest of topics. However, for me, the real disappointment has been the refusal of The (Glasgow) Herald to even touch the subject. No, that's not right – their now ex-Head of Sport, then newly in-place and keen to be seen to be doing something, did write a fairly insipid piece, which to me read as “fake news” immediately after the AGM, but, this interest lasted an even-shorter period than his tenure in the hot seat; when he was sacked even faster than Tommy Docherty managed on a couple of occasions.

Since Donald Cowey found the escape tunnel from the top of Renfield Street, the Herald Sports Desk has had more “captains” than Cunard and British Airways combined – and the lack of leadership shows.

Mark "Goose" Palmer and  

Then came the Keith Russell Affair. Everyone, except Mark Palmer of the Sunday Times Scotland, who took-on the role of “Goose” - wing-man to Top Gun David “Maverick” Barnes - was comprehensively scooped here. (Yes, I know, the idea of calling long-tall Barney after short-arse Cruise is ridiculous, but, go with it).

David "Maverick" Brnes - Top Guns in covering the Russell dismissal 

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in the business, when you are as totally-scooped as we all were by Barney is: if you are a red-top tabloid (Sun, Record) – write a “spoiler”, plagiarised if you must, then slap your own “EXCLUSIVE” banner on the story. If you are the Mail or the Express, you adopt a censorious tone and copy and paste. The “serious” papers tend to leave the story alone – unless they can add something to what is already in the public domain.

That bit about adding something is important. Kevin Ferrie of the Herald finally commented on the Russell Affair on Saturday morning. It was, as one life-long Herald reader said to me: “A story he'd have been better not writing.” A piss-poor waste of newsprint, by a paper which is going down the stank faster than Ruth Davidson on a downhill skeleton sledge. It was also a piece which toed the party line, defending the indefensible.

A week after The Offside Line and the Sunday Times Scotland had broken the Russell story, Iain Morrison in Scotland on Sunday got involved. Morry trod rather a “safe” path through the middle ground, but he did raise some interesting points which seemed to verify reports of a “toxic atmosphere” within HQ and Dodson's bully boy tendencies. His piece was all the more influential, coming as it did from the pen of a man who via his two Cambridge University “Blues”, his captaincy of the Barbarians, his place in the London Scottish Hall of Fame and his 15 Scotland caps is definitely seen as being “a member of the Rugby Establishment.”

Iain Morrison - an unhappy member of the Scottish Rugby "Establishment"

The belief is, however, abroad that such credentials mean little to professional administrators such as Dodson – who only seem to revere the bottom line.

Gary Ralston, in the Daily Record, also chipped-in his twopenceworth. One of the more-erudite football writers – his work “The Gallant Pioneers” about the men who founded Rangers is one of the best Scottish football books ever – Ralston hit the SRU with the full force of a Tam Forsyth or a John Greig challenge, and in writing it, he showed that somebody inside the Glasgow sports-writing bubble was aware of the big issues.

Great piece Gaz, you're wasted taking dictation from Wee James.

Finally, on Monday, taking advantage of having Dodson and “Lance-Corporal Jones” within firing range in Houston, the BBC's Tom English had a go. Scotland's second-favourite Irishman (after Neil Lennon) is a consummate professional and he pressed Dodson hard in producing an excellent piece. To be fair to the Ayatollah, he stood his corner well, staunchly defended his actions and his management style. But, when the questions got too-intrusive, he was not slow to hide behind “no comment.”

Dodson had “Lance-Corporal Jones,” President Rob Flockhart, as his wing man, or, as I read it - he was an unfunny “donkey” to Dodson's Shrek. Flockhart even ended his shallow contribution with the classic meaningless corporate get-out: “Lessons will be learned.” Experience leads me to believe, when a representative of an organisation uses that line – you can bet they were playing truant when the lessons were being given out.

In Houston, the Lance-Corporal morphed into Donkey, but, without the wise-cracks

We can perhaps be grateful, the “Lance-Corporal” is a “Zombie”, a dead man walking. He will, in seven weeks' time, after the AGM, sink back to the anonymity from which he arose – he will not be greatly-missed.

Flockhart stood for election to high office on a platform of: “standing-up for the clubs” and “holding the Executive to account,” two stages on which he has failed, dismally.

The SRU is, as the Russell Affair brought into the open, in a bit of a mess. If the Council cannot do their job, the rugby press has to step-up and hold the powers-that-be to account. Big Barney at TOL, Mark Palmer, I have, I hope done my bit – but, we need a few more of the troops to get off their erses and act.

When one of the Record's football scribes is ahead of the rugby writers in commenting on a rugby issue – well it emphasises how cowed large parts of the rugby-writing fraternity has become with this SRU management, and how little interest in rugby the guys making the editorial decisions in the mainstream media appear to think there is in Scotland.

If a football equivalent of Keith Russell had been unfairly dismissed and won a case against the SFA, the msm would have been all over it like a rash. And, it is this total lack of interest in rugby below PRO14 level by that same msm which means, Stupid-6 simply will not work – it will never attract an audience.