Cross-Border Games Might Initially Be Painful For Our Clubs

SRU Trustee Rob Flockhart, as then President of the Union, said after the 2017 agm that there had been a lot of “noise” from the floor of the meeting. This “noise” was the ordinary clubs flexing their muscles against a blatant Establishment power grab.

 

Rob Flockhart - any "noise" he heard this year came from Establishment place men

The High Heid Yins came back for a second go at Saturday's 2018 meeting and were sent back to the executive floor to think again. One wonders what scheme they will come up with in 2019 to keep the ordinary stakeholders under their jackboot.

But, as a member of the press corps who was there on Saturday said to me: “The “noise” this year came from some Estabishment place men” – when they invited 'National Treasures' Gregor Townsend, Fin Calder and Iain Milne to speak during the debate on the Aberdeen GSFP/Marr motion which successful established, it was the right of the clubs to decide the bye laws regarding domestic competitions.

As another press man said: “A competent chairman would have gently reminded Toony, Fin and The Bear to stick to the issue under debate, instead of allowing them to waffle on.”

This is an old Establishment trick used in other fields – try to divert the crowd away from the subject and hope to deflect attention. The feeling on the press benches was that Chairman Colin Grassie's bed time story of a 28 minute waffle did its job too, it took the heat out of the meeting and probably made enough delegates woozy to cool their justifiable anger over some of the Establishment's stranger decisions.

To be fair to Mr Flockhart, by the way – and I have been harsh on him of late – he did offer an apology for any upset he might have caused, which is more than we got from that rotund Mancunian control freak the Fat Controller, a man with definitely far more to apologise for.

 Mark Dodson  - he owes us a huge apology for his actions

The sense on the press bench was also, whereas 2017 had been the Fat Controller and the Consigliore show, after 'Russellgate”, the elected officers telt Haud It and Daud It to say as little as they had to, for fear they made a bad situation worse.

And, speaking of TFC, he did in his best Donald Trump style, announce that his pride and joy – Stupid-6 would have cross-border competition, via games against the top six clubs in the Welsh Premiership; this competition to kick-off towards the end of the 2019-2020 season.

The thing is, a Scot named Alexander Graham Bell, back in the 19^th century, invented this wee gadget, the telephone, which nowadays enables one person to speak to another on the other side of the world, far less the South Wales valleys.

Well, I have this mate see, on the committee of one of the top Welsh club sides, so, I asked him, as you do: “Look you Boyo, what's the goss on this competition between your top six and ours?”

“Dunno, haven't heard a dickie bird,” was the response. Although, another contact, with friend in high places such as the WRU General Committee tells me, his contact in the valleys says, it has been mentioned, but, only in the passing like.

I have since learned, the new competition is due to be discussed by a WRU committee this week. However, already some of the leading Welsh clubs are making it clear – they do not wish to play the cross-border games in April and May, which is when the SRU would apparently prefer to play them.

In addition, the Welsh clubs are facing a cut in their grant from the WRU, and some of them are questioning if they can afford to compete in this new event.

Maybe TFC jumped the gun somewhat in announcing it as: “happening.”

The element of cross-border competition – allowing our better club players, Academy graduates and “late developers” to demonstrate they might be worth a punt as potential pros, was one of the key drivers behind Stupid-6. Nobody is really arguing against this.

But, is playing the Welsh Premiership clubs, given the WRU are somewhat down-grading this level of competition, by introducing Regional Under-23 squads, the way to go? I think, in an ideal world we ought to be doing this too, by introducing Edinburgh and Glasgow A teams, directly equivalent to the Under-23 and A squads being brought in by the Welsh and Irish.

But, this would need to be funded directly by the SRU, and, although they will not admit it – they patently cannot afford to do this, hence their move to get the clubs to underwrite this level of development for them.

Will it work? We honestly don't know, but, as a guide, I had a look at our Premiership clubs' results against Welsh Premiership clubs while we participated in the British and Irish Cup, between seasons 2009-10 and 2013-14.

In those five seasons, eight Scottish Premiership clubs – Ayr, Currie, Dundee HSFP, Edinburgh Academicals, Gala, Heriot's, Melrose and Stirling County got to experience cross-border games – four of these have now obtained SRU franchises.

Our overall record, against Welsh Premiership clubs in the B&I Cup reads: played 25 – won 4 – lost 21. The four games we managed to win: Ayr v Llandovery in 2010-11, Melrose v Aberavon and Currie at Swansea in 2011-12, then Dundee HSFP v Carmarthen Quins in 2012-13 were won - respectively by one point, one point, 17 points and two points. The 21 games we lost saw the Scottish team, on only seven occasions, lose by less than one score, while the average margin of victory for the Welsh sides was just shy of 15 points.

If we use these historic results as a guide, and we acknowledge the Scottish teams were somewhat bolstered by drafted professionals, I reckon they show us what might happen if and when this new cross-border competition gets going. We would expect, initially, to lose more than we win, particular in Wales, where our clubs posted just one win in 11 visits.

But, while we must acknowledge, on past form the Welsh Premiership seems to be a slightly better higher standard of league than our Premiership, with part-time professionalism spread more-widely across Scotland (I suggest, at least Ayr and Melrose are “part-time professional” already), we should have a chance of winning more often, and, this cross-border competition would work.

Whether it will give the SRU Performance Department the answers they seek as to player readiness for full professional contracts – we will have to wait and see.