Not Just Bullshit - Weapons Grade, SRU Bullshit - The Best There Is

KEITH RUSSELL was either very lucky, or a genius like his son. When he opted not to take the money and walk, but to fight his unfair sacking, he took the sort of gamble Finn faces on a weekly basis, when he (Finn) decides to take on three bigger back row opponents. As with his son on the field, when Keith decided to take on the bullies in SRU suits,in the industrial tribunal court room – it could all have got messy for him.

 Keith Russell - not a mention of his case in the review document

But, Keith took the gamble and it paid-off, when Judge d'Inverno ruled in his favour, awarded him a very generous six-figure settlement and allowed him to get on with his life, away from the “toxic” atmosphere of BT Murrayfield. Good luck Keith Russell.

But, what of the rest of us in Scottish Rugby? Those club officials, giving of their free time to keep the local club which means so much to them going; the ordinary players, trying to remain fit and competitive in a game which appears to ask more of its participants every season, for no apparent gain other than being able to play this wonderful game?

What of these former players, who want to relive their youth by going down to the club of a Saturday, watching their successors play – perhaps having a moan: “Naw, this present lot arenae as guid as we were,” as they sup their post-match pints – only to discover, the game they wanted to watch was off, because the opposition couldn't raise a team?

Scottish Rugby is in a mess. It is a mess of its own making. And, if yesterday's 1703 words of soothing pish, this: “Joint Statement from the Board and Council” was meant to help clean-up that mess – it has failed – spectacularly.

Jock Craig, John Jeffrey, Davie Rollo and “Muff” Scobbie are perhaps the best-known farmers in Scottish Rugby, I bet these four legends, even on the day they put the beasts back out in the fields after a winter indoors, have never been confronted by such a huge steaming pile of bullshit as that review document.

A veteran hack described the document as: “One huge fudge,” adding: “And too much fudge makes you sick.”

Why, even Morry and the Ferryman – who some of us feel are contractually-obliged to not rock the boat, managed to show, as much as they are allowed, they were slightly-miffed at the sugar-coated pile of keech which emerged yesterday.

The Herald and The Hootsmon demonstrate their take on the Review document

They would be as well donning black suits, black shirts and dog collars, and standing outside BT Murrayfield, holding aloft signs reading: “Careful now”, and: “Down with this sort of thing.”

How can you conduct a review into “Russellgate” and Judge d'Inverno's “toxic culture within Murrayfield,” use up 1703 words, and fail to mention either Keith Russell's sacking, or the good Judge's view on the working culture?

Or might “Cher” as she sits among her peers in whatever posh Edinburgh howff the College of Advocates frequent, be able to say with pride: “I was warned to not mention the War, I think I got away with it.”

And what of the main man or men. The word was, the review, when released, would not make good reading for The Fat Controller and The Consigliore.

“The counsel cannot survive, his reputation has been shredded,” was the whisper from inside The Big Top, as the worker ants have named BT Murrayfield.

“They cannot afford to sack The Fat Controller, but, his power-base has eroded, his wings have been clipped and he is looking for an out,” was another whisper.

The pair had driven a D9 bulldozer through Employment Law, only to run into the bigger, stronger, more-powerful D11, driven by the Employment Tribunal Judge d'Inverno, by whom they were verbally flayed. Their actions cost the SRU, certainly in Keith Russell's case, a significant six-figure sum – but, you can, as I have, go through the entire document line by line – and you will still find no mention of either; far less a word of censure.

I have had club officials, whose previous conversations with me on rugby matters on which I have blogged has been: “I think you went a bit too-far there, and were a tad unfair,” absolutely furious at the review and how it has been mishandled.

The Court of Rugby Public Opinion has considered its verdict, which is: that this is a black day for Scottish Rugby, and it leaves the Executive and the game itself in a bad place.

We learn from the review document: “lessons have been learned.” FFS, various incompetent political parties and governments have been using “lessons have been learned” for decades. The only lesson that has been learned is: when the public read that, they just know little or nothing will change.

We are told, the new Governance Committee under Gavin MacColl QC, will consider how governance can be improved, and report back – why does this not fill me with hope?

The President confronts her CEO about the Review document

The Mancunian “Nelson Munz” is still strutting around the school yard in EH12. He still has the confidence of “Chairman Montgomery Burns” and “Edna Krabappel” is still finding her feet at Murrayfield Elementary.

I want to finish by telling you a story. In the media game, you come across all sorts of people, and I was recently chatting to a fellow journalist, who encountered The Fat Controller in his previous life in the newspaper industry. He told me this.

When he was running the Guardian's stable of weekly newspapers, The Fat Controller had a different nickname. The Mothers and Fathers of the various Chapels (that's shop stewards in the print industry, where every trades union branch is a chapel) knew him as: “That C*** Dodson.”

With the Guardian, he adopted a policy of fewer but stronger – closing weekly titles and working from fewer, larger production units. The Guardian eventually sold-off their weekly titles at a loss, and TCD walked away with a nice thick severance cheque.

Well, it worked for him once, why not twice? Just saying.