Scotland Needs More Than One Big Yin

THE UNEXPECTED – to a degree, call-ups for Sam Skinner and Blade Thomson to the national squad, are being seen as a response to a seemingly eternal Scottish problem.

There is a belief in Scotland that: “guid gear comes in sma' bulk.” We have never had a Heavyweight Champion of the World, but, we've produced plenty of great flyweights. We still laud the 1928 Wembley Wizards, with a forward line, none of whom was taller than five-foot seven, thrashing England 5-1, and, in rugby we don't reckon any of today's six-foot five, 17 stone centres, can come close to wee Jim Renwick.

But, while we have one or two youngsters bubbling under, right now, we could do with unearthing a couple of top-class BIG locks. Sure, Jonny Gray is a class act, Ben Toolis is one of the top line-out operators in the game and Grant Gilchrist, after a terrible time with injuries is beginning to justify his promise, but, we lack numbers, badly. So, we must hope that big Sam in particular can cut the mustard.

Sam Skinner

It doesn't help us that right now: Richie Gray, Tim Swinson, Lewis Carmichael and Fraser Mckenzie are all injured. Indeed, Edinburgh have a real locks crisis on their hands for their home game with Scarlets on 2 November.

With Gilchrist and Toolis in the Scotland squad and Carmichael and Mckenzie injured, their cupboard is bare.

And it's not much better at the other end of the M8. With Jonny Gray and the versatile Rob Harley with Scotland, big Brian Alainu'uese off to Toulon and (as far as I know) Andy Davidson's loan spell from Newcastle over, Scott Cummings and big Greg Peterson are the only front-line locks left at Scotstoun.

This could mean a trip to Swansea, to sit on the bench, for either 19-year-old Ayr lock Marshall Sykes, or 18-year-old Cameron Henderson, the two Forsoc Scottish Rugby Academy Stage III locks who are full-time with Warriors and are two of the “bubbling under” kids I mentioned four paragraphs ago. Edinburgh's position is even worse than Glasgow's.

However, a shortage of big locks has long been a feature of Scottish rugby. When I first started going to Murrayfield, the big really big men were starting to arrive – with England's mighty pairing of Marques and Currie in the van.

Sure, Ernie Michie could look both straight in the eye, but, John M Bannerman had decided, Anglo-Scots such as Michie had to play for London Scottish to get into the Scotland team, and Ernie was playing with Leicester. So, until he came north to Langholm, this 1955 Lion couldn't be selected, leaving six foot two Hamish Kemp to try to compete – something to be fair he did rather well – against bigger men at the touchline.

Since then, things have improved. We got ten Bos and Campbell-Lammerton, the Browns, Al McHarg, Peter Stagg, Bill Cuthbertson and “Sally” Campbell, Tom Smith of Gala, David Gray, Andy Reed, Damien Cronin and Chris Gray, Shade Munro, Scott Murray, and today's big men – but, we never seem to have the numbers of big men of the other countries.

Our current crop of tried and tested locks: the Grays, Tim Swinson and the Edinburgh pair of Gilchrist and Toolis can stand comparison with any group available elsewhere in world rugby, but, beneath that, we struggle.

And, whereas England can draw from 12 domestic clubs, France from 14 and Ireland and Wales from four each. We are like the Italians, we can only draw from two professional teams, plus a small number of Scottish exiles.

We can perhaps hope that Super-6, if it ever gets going, and it is taking what seems like an eternity in setting that up, will indeed narrow the gap between the club game, so that if our two professional clubs are hit by even the sort of mini-crisis they appear to be suffering at the moment, it can be more-easily overcome – and we will have a choice of big, athletic locks, ready to step-in as required.

Mind you, a couple of seasons ago, when Glasgow had a mini-crisis in the boiler-house, big Rob McAlpine of Ayr, stepped-in and didn't look out of place, demonstrating in the process, the pish about the Premiership not being fit for purpose was simply that – more Murrayfield pish.

Marshall Sykes - impressing for Ayr

The way the likes of Andy Davidson in his short spell at Warriors, Marshall Sykes and Alfie North at Ayr, and Cameron Henderson at Stirling County have stood-up and been counted this season, leads me to believe, we might soon have another group of good, young locks coming through.

But, we have to keep looking. Each generation of Scot might be bigger than the one before it, but, we are still short of big men and have to find more.

Maybe we should be more pro-active and approach tall guys in the street, or in the pub. In this way, we at Cumnock converted a couple of football guys to rugby, Jacko Quinn, steel erector and Celtic fanatic, was later “stolen” by Ayr, for whom he did well, while Jim Ramage, a Scotland “cap” at American football also went to Ayr, and into the Glasgow XV, never having played rugby at school.

It might work, for, as an American coach we had at Cumnock Basketball Club said: “I can teach guys to do anything necessary in this game, but, what I cannot teach them is to be six-foot eight – that's a bonus.”

If that holds good in basketball, why not also in rugby?