Super-6 Is Happening, Even Though We're Dancing In The Dark

THERE can be no doubts – Super-6 has been a custerfuck from the moment TCD sprung it on Scottish Rugby, at the end of the 2017 annual general meeting.

Just about the only justification for bringing it in is – the clubs, particularly the Premiership, had been arguing for change for years and couldn't agree on what to do, so, the Union stepped in and gave a bit of leadership.

TCD - he thinks he is Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Say "Make it so," and things will happen

Now, ill-conceived, inadequately-justified, badly “sold” as it has been, pushed through by a total pauchle of a franchise system, we have to accept, it is going to happen. TCD has gone into full Jean-Luc Picard mode and said: “Make it so,” so happen it will. S6 is the unwanted child of the game, now, it is up to the SRU to polish this turd and make it acceptable.

And that isn't coming from me – that's coming from one or two people who will have to make it work – influential guys within the six franchise clubs. As I have been saying for weeks, anything good that has come out of S6, has come from the clubs; anything bad has come from BT Murrayfield, and there has been more bad than good.

We are all dancing in the dark as to what will happen when S6 kicks in next season. We are all assuming the S6 season will be the same as the normal club one, but there are hints coming from the six franchises – this may not be the case.

For a start, with only six clubs involved: home and away matches will give a mere 10 fixtures, do we then go down the discredited old Premier League football route of multiple games, which would give us either 15 games (if we go with three meetings per season) or 20 games (at four meetings per season).

What will happen if the cross-border games do come to pass (assuming the SRU and the WRU can agree on timing)? That will add further games to the schedule, dependant on how it is organised. And we still don't know what is going to happen here.

We need clarity on this. For instance, there have been suggestions that the S6 games might be played during the Autumn Internationals, and at the end of what may be a stretched season. Other notions we have heard is that the weekend will be split into three distinct categories, with the PRO14 home games being scheduled for Friday nights. The normal club games being played on Saturday and the Super-6 games on a Sunday.

We need clarity on this as well, and we need it soon.

But, there is another wee twist in the story. The notion has been tentatively floated: that there should be some sort of draft system – similar to the current one between the professional sides and the Premiership ones – whereby S6 players are drafted to Championship clubs (assuming the Premiership is renamed as the Championship next season).

The suggestion is, this might offset the leading National League cubs' misgivings about “hoovering-up” of players to fill the S6 rosters. Instead of perhaps losing players, these clubs would be gaining, is the argument.

Of course, for this to work properly, BTM would need to bite the bullet and admit the reality of the situation – and that is, S6 is a PERFORMANCE LEAGUE. Acknowledge this, accept it, take it out of the Domestic sphere and one or two perceived problems vanish.

In this first season, 2019-20, we have to assume, the 210 Super-6 players in the six squads will mainly come from the existing Premiership/National League clubs' rosters. However, I get the impression the wish/plan is, as the initial five-year franchise term goes on, we will see more and more vacancies in the rosters being met by younger players advancing along the Performance Pathway, via the age group national sides to the Academy.

There will be younger players too, with the ability not not the desire to be full-time professional rugby players. Young men happy to play for fun, but whose principal wish to go to university and enter the professions or business. It is, I believe, as a means of keeping these guys in the game, that there was so-much pressure on the franchise winners to have a university or seat of higher learning involved.

It really is time the SRU clarified these and other points. Doing and saying nothing only allows occasionally false conjecture and uncertainty, and with such a major change to the format of the game, these negative waves have to be abolished.

I SPOTTED, and briefly commented on a couple of weeks ago, the disgraceful fact that Doddie Weir's wonderful MND fund will NOT benefit directly from this weekend's special international between Wales and Scotland, in Cardiff.

Doddie and his wonderful charity have been disgracefully ill-used by the Welsh and Scottish RUs

The treasurer of neither union will, when all the cash has been counted, sit down and write a substantial cheque to Doddie's charity. For the WRU, aided and abetted by TCD and the minions at BT Murrayfield, charity begins at home.

Of course, the Small Controller and the pr gurus will be in full damage-limitation mode this week, now everyone has noticed. We will be reassured how Doddie's charity will be name-checked at every opportunity. We will get pictures of the buckets that will be sent round the crowd.

Doddie will be prominently involved on match day, all designed to show the two unions are doing their bit – except, at the end of the day, the main beneficiary of a big match will be the WRU, not Doddie's MND Charity.

Both unions are currently hunkering down to avoid incoming hostile fire from disgruntled member clubs. They badly need friends, not making a significant contribution to a very worthwhile charity is not the way to go about winning them.

But of course, the likes of TCD are business-men, all they care about is the bottom line. TCD has shown repeatedly, he perhaps knows the price of everything, but he hasn't a clue about the value of anything.