Well Done To All The Winners - But, I Still Think "They" Don't Love You

CONGRATULATIONS to all the winners at last night's BT Scottish Rugby Club Awards Dinner at BT Murrayfield. The club guys and gals have, as I have frequently said on here, to work like swans on steroids just to stay afloat in difficult times.

I wasn't there, but, my gut feeling is that, as the clubs celebrated their successes, major and minor, few present would appreciate, they are still seen as largely cannon fodder by the self-servers currently sitting at the important tables. I will not tar all with the same broad brush, but, we appear to have, in recent years, appointed some rum coves to elected positions of power – and the paid professionals inside Murrayfield increasingly give the impression, they care very little for the club game – that part of the game which drives progress.

It is time for all good men, who can see beyond the confines of their ain wee midden to stand-up and be counted. The cracks are showing, and we will soon be unable to paper over them. At least there are some promising motions on the AGM Agenda, and the “suits” will have to try to justify some of their recent daft notions.

But, to last night, and while in no way depreciating the thoroughly-well-deserved accolade given to Stirling County, with their Coaching System award – they are an example to us all here – I cannot help being suspicious of the fact, this year, when we had an outstanding candidate for the award, turning around an institution which – when he took over – was akin to some of those pictures of the sinking Titanic, nobody was honoured as Coach of the Year.

Never mind wee Geordie, you are maybe a non-person in the corridors of power, they found a way to avoid giving the prize you so-justly earned to you: but, fine we in the wider world of Scottish Rugby ken – you were Coach of the Year by a country mile.

 

George Graham - the SRU didn't name a Coach of the Year this season. If they had, any winner other than Wee Geordie, would have been a travesty

WE here in Scotland have maybe been too-busy soul-searching over our own problems, with Stupid-6 and Agenda-3, but, elsewhere in world rugby, the lesser clubs are beginning to realise, while their top officials are busy trying to sustain their often unsustainable professional games, the grass-roots club game is decaying.

Earlier this season there was that bombshell news that club playing numbers are down in NEW ZEALAND. FFS, if they are struggling, what hope is there for the rest of us. On the other side of “The Ditch” as the antipodeans refer to the Tasman Sea, Australia's problems continue, with sinking numbers, from top to bottom, poor professional performance and turmoil in the club game.

 

Leaving aside Scotland's internal problems, mirrored in many ways in Wales, we now find the grass-roots in England are stirring. In Lancashire, there are moves to initiate independent leagues, outwith the RFU's long-established and successful pyramid system – brought about because the local clubs are unimpressed by the support they have been getting from Twickenham.

Now, IRELAND, the rugby nation which between being 6Nations Grand Slam Champions, and having Leinster, win both the European Cup and the PRO14 title, would seem to be doing things properly, has its problems – and, they stem from, of all places – Leinster

It seems, the IRFU “suits” want, like their colleagues inside Murrayfield, to bring the top tier of the club game closer to the professional PRO14 sides, by introducing a “semi-professional” third tier.

Unlike the SRU, however, they are not selling franchises - yet. The Dublin plan is to revamp the All-Ireland League, their equivalent of the BT Premiership, into a two x eight-club conferences competition, without promotion or relegation.

 Leinster - on top of the world, but, their senior clubs are not happy leprechauns

 

The senior Leinster clubs are up in arms over this. Scant detail has come down from Lansdowne Road and the senior Leinster clubs such as Lansdowne, Terenure College, UCD and Blackrock College are naturally keen to find out what is planned for them from season 2019-20.

 

Chuck-in the turmoil in Wales, with the move to Under-23 Regional teams and a cut in the funding to the top clubs getting the Taffia worked-up, and it is quite clear, nearly 25-years on from the big bang and open rugby the game is still adjusting.

Maybe it was easier when we all paid to play, as a means of working-up a Saturday night thirst.

AS ONE who prefers his rugby to be local and club-based: not that I have anything against the full-time professionals, I was not convinced when the Ayatollah and his minions shoe-horned that third 1872 Cup match onto the end of Silver Saturday.

 

This move gave the mainstream media, ambivalent as they are towards club rugby, another chance to ignore the grass-roots game and concentrate their fire on the two pro sides. But, the big day of cup finals at Murrayfield was already a long one, without adding a game to an already tiring schedule.

 

Sure, they got over 25,000 into the ground, and, bums on seats is the bottom line for the professional administrators, but, is bigger always better?

 

Flushed by success, the “suits” have decided to repeat the exercise next season – but, are finding the law of unintended consequences coming into play.

Warriors on the warpath

 

"The XVIth Warrior”, the Glasgow supporters club, aint happy. “How come, every year, we've got to travel to Murrayfield twice while they only have to come here once?” is the question on many lips among the WN. Some feel they are not getting full value for their season tickets, if the third all-Scottish game is to be played, again, at HQ.

 

Glasgow, more-so perhaps than Edinburgh, has succeeded in attracting new recruits to rugby; many of these newcomers don't have a club rugby background, and will be less-willing than long-standing club members to put up with Murrayfield machinations. They will not be easily placated.

 

Forget that old chestnut about the difficulty of differentiating between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine – Weegies on the war-path are best avoided.