A Long Read Following A Short Message

THIS POST IS A "LONG READ"

I RECEIVED the following Facebook message, from a friend who is a High Heid Yin in a prominent National League club, which happens to operate close to one of the six franchise-winning clubs. He wrote:

“That's the SRU-funded player hoovering started now. Some of our best players are being recruited as back-fill for a Super-6 amateur side. What a kick in the nuts for everyone who has burst a gut for us over the years. Thanks to the SRU ( and sorry pal your acquiescence in their plans ) you have demotivated every volunteer at every non six ambitious club.

“Marr had D'Arcy Rae making his debut at the weekend – every one at that club is massively proud. You do now realise that this is the last time a non six club can lay claim to having an internationalist?

“All future stars will - thanks to your acquiescence- be coming from the top six clubs only. What’s the actual point for clubs like Marr? If there is one I can’t see it.

“You have got this one massively wrong. Speak soon.”

My mate has a very long association with his club, and before that with the school, which to this day continues to be the principal provider of new blood for that club. He has invested a lot of time, effort and money in bringing his club through from the old District Leagues to its place today, high-up the National League ladder.

He is angry at how things are panning out, and he feels betrayed by some of the decisions taken within the BT Murrayfield corridors of power. I have a large degree of sympathy for him, and those like him in other clubs, but, I feel he (and others like him) are not perhaps seeing the grander vista. I hope I can clarify things.

There are two parts to the Scottish Rugby Union.

• Part one is the SRU, the body tasked with overseeing and nurturing the game of Rugby Union Football in Scotland. This governing body's officials – the Council members - act on behalf of the SRU's stake-holders, the 200-odd independent clubs in full or affiliated membership.
  
  
• Part two is SRU PLC, the body, run by the Board of the SRU, this, in effect is the body charged with making the money which makes running the SRU proper possible.

The management model which SRU PLC has adopted is that the National team – SCOTLAND, plays a style of rugby which keeps the nation among the world leaders in rugby and attracts a sufficient number of spectators to Murrayfield for home games to generate the finances necessary to allow the game to flourish at professional and amateur level.

That strategy calls for two things to happen:

• We require a Head Coach and coaching staff with the necessary vision and talent to get the best out of the available players.
  
  
• We require these players to be playing regularly at a sufficiently high standard that they can compete on the world stage.

SRU PLC's strategy for this calls for Scotland to have two clubs playing in the Celtic League, in the Guinness PRO14.

• In an ideal world, these two clubs would be independently-owned clubs, licensed by the SRU to participate in the PRO14.

However, SRU PLC has been unable to find two independently-owned and financed clubs to undertake this, so, they have been forced to take-on the task of financing and managing these clubs themselves.

The time-honoured and proven road map towards international rugby in Scotland was:

• Schools rugby
  
  
• Club rugby in the unofficial then official National Leagues
  
  
• Inter-District rugby with the Anglo-Scots, Edinburgh, Glasgow, North and Midlands and the South
  
  
• Selection for the national team.

However, in the quarter century of turmoil, wrong choices and upheaval since Rugby Union Football went “Open” in 1995 this time-proven road map has become somewhat tattered and torn.

• Schools rugby – other than in certain private schools – is in a mess. However, to be fair, the demise of schools rugby, at least in the state sector, has been ongoing since the teachers strike of the mid-1980s. True, some clubs have done a good job in taking-up the slack from this, but, the efforts to do this have been patchy.
  
  
• Club rugby has gradually seen a reduction in playing numbers.
  
  
• The professional Celtic League sides have become the District sides to an extent, but, financial reality has meant the original five teams have been reduced to just two – Edinburgh and Glasgow.
  
  
• The national team is still there, but, performances have been patchy.

One of the supposed strengths of the old Inter-District system was, that it allowed the best Scottish players to continue to play for their local clubs, before coming together for the Inter-District matches, the Scottish trials and for the national team.

But, even back then – there was a pecking order and players often had to move clubs to gain national selection: Gordon and Peter Brown left Marr for West of Scotland, Alistair McHarg left Irvine for West too. David Leslie left Dundee for West, then Gala, Nairn McEwan commuted from Inverness to Gala to gain Scotland honours. David Shedden left Old Spierians for West, Bruce Hay crossed Edinburgh from Liberton FP to Boroughmuir. Bill Cuthbertson left Marr for Kilmarnock, then Harlequins, Brian Gossman's career path to Scotland was Ardrossan Academicals, to Kilmarnock, to West.

Stewartry RFC did not exist back then, but, if Arthur Smith had simply done what so-many similarly intelligent people from Castle Douglas had done, gone up to Glasgow University, got his degree, then returned to Castle Douglas, perhaps to play rugby in Dumfries, or maybe, because Alastair McMillan his centre at University was from there, to play for Ayr – would he have become the iconic figure he now is, as a Scotland and Lions captain?

Good, ambitious players have always moved clubs to gain recognition.

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, back in the Inter-District days, each of the five Districts had a 30-man squad; that's 150 potential Scotland players, from which the SRU selectors would choose around 40, players and reserves, for the Scotland Trials, from which a 23-man match-day squad and maybe another seven fringe players would be chosen.

Today, Glasgow list 58 full-time players on their website, of whom 47 are potential Scotland players. Edinburgh list 47 full-time players on their website, of whom 39 are potential Scotland players. Add the 15 Scottish internationalists either playing in France or in England who are still on the Scotland selection radar and you find the Scotland team today is chosen from a potential pool of 101 players – a reduction of one-third from the District days.

Where have those 50 players gone? I would suggest they are still playing for their local clubs, so, it might be argued, the standard of normal club rugby today is higher than it was in the old amateur days of District rugby.

• However, received wisdom within Murrayfield is that even at its highest level – the Tennent's Premiership – club rugby is not fit for purpose: If that purpose is to prepare players for a possible career in professional rugby.

The SRU's answer to this not fit for purpose problem has been to introduce a new tier of rugby, the semi-professional Super-6. These would be six SRU franchises, allowing a club to run a semi-professional team, as a “bridge” between ordinary club play and the two professional sides, but managed in such a way that their players, if called-up to the two professional sides, would be better able to make a contribution than a Premiership player being called up today might.

As originally suggested, Super-6 looked to the ordinary club man like District Rugby by another name. We were told:

• No more than two franchises in any one of the four Regions: Caledonia, East, South and West.
  
  
• These franchises would heighten the bar and be the standard bearers and beacons of excellence for rugby in their region.

Then, the SRU, being the SRU, decided to fuck things up, by giving three franchises to Edinburgh clubs and totally ignoring Glasgow rugby – the fall-out from that scandalous decision continues to sour attitudes within the game.

I sense there is a general feeling across Scottish rugby, that this bridging tier, between the club game and the professional game is necessary. A lot of people have commented on my blog posts and called for a return to DISTRICT RUGBY as the preferred method of having this tier.

But, it isn't going to happen – Murrayfield insiders make this clear. It's a no-go area.

I have said this before, I will doubtless say it again, but, nobody from Murrayfield has ever told me I am wrong in holding this belief, but:

• The reason the SRU went with the six franchises, rather than by setting-up either Edinburgh and Glasgow A teams, or District/Regional semi-professional sides is – THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY FOR IT THEMSELVES.

The six clubs are therefore, bailing-out the SRU, from a problem the governing body feels it cannot sort-out on its own.

However, it has emerged over time, that we have been maybe gone down the wrong road in assuming the six clubs will be “hoovering-up” potential players from surrounding clubs, since they will need to have 35-player Super-6 squads, and also continue to run team(s) in the normal club competitions, which will continue. That is one of the points of concern from my friend at the top of this blog.

It has now emerged that the players for the Super-6 squads will mainly come from those young players already on the SRU's “Performance Pathway”, mainly those young players already within the Forsoc Scottish Rugby Academy.

The belief is that a significant number of existing Premiership and National League players will voluntarily opt-out of Super-6, because, and one or two players have confirmed this to me, they are at a stage in the “day job”, their Monday to Friday working careers, where they simply could not put-in the training time commitment which will be called for with semi-professional rugby.

These guys will either retire, or drop into their club's amateur sides and continue to play in National League 1, the level at which the six amateur sides have been placed. They will be replaced by younger players from the Academy or the Pathway.

So, it looks to me, as if the future road map for progress to full international status will be:

• Youth rugby at club level
  
  
• Selection for the Player Pathway
  
  
• Selection for the Academy or into a Super-6 club Academy
  
  
• Age group representative honours
  
  
• Super-6
  
  
• Professional rugby
  
  
• The Scotland team

I suspect, outstanding talent, such as “the next Stuart Hogg” or “the next Darcy Graham” will be capable of by-passing one or more of these steps, but, in-general, this I suspect is how Scotland caps of the 2020s and beyond will emerge.

So, players such as Mark Bennett (Cumnock), D'Arcy Rae (Marr), Grant Gilchrist (Alloa), Jonny Gray (Cambuslang) and the Horne brothers (Howe of Fife) will still emerge from smaller or less-celebrated clubs to become full internationalists. However, ordinary club-men such as my mate who sent me down this train of thought, should perhaps reconcile himself, as we have had to at my own Cumnock club – having lost Bennett, Gavin Lowe and Paddy Dewhirst to bigger teams at an early age – to seeing less of them in our club colours.

As for his point regarding player poaching. I fear that will be a more-difficult practise to end. Players have always moved, for various reasons. I recall one player who left Cumnock, because he was not being picked, to move to Ayr, where he actually stepped down a XV. He could not get out of Cumnock 2nds, so he went to Millbrae, where he began in the A1s – their third XV, but worked his way up to the firsts and into the old Glasgow District XV. But, the general cause of a player moving always has been, ambition and a chance to find out if he can play at a higher level. That will not stop.

However, my mate is suggesting we might find players, perhaps from a club which will be playing in the Championship – if that is what the current Premiership will be renamed next season – to join a Super-6 amateur team playing in the lower National League 1.

The only reason I can see for a player doing this is money. But, that is, at the moment a guess, because as yet, nobody knows what will happen next season.

It would greatly decrease the levels of hot air, fake news - paranoia even, currently about in Scottish Rugby, if Murrayfield told us what was happening, or even what they want to see happen. To use an expression I have had to frequently invoke on here: Nobody knows what is going to occur.

We need clarity, and we need it quickly – so we can move forward.

However, to answer my mate's final question: What’s the actual point for clubs like Marr?

Clubs such as Marr will still be needed – to attract youngsters into rugby, to nurture them in the game's skills and values, and to keep providing rugby for the majority of the players, who will never, ever, be good enough to play for Scotland.

If they are fortunate enough to turn up, in Marr's case, more players like their four internationalists – the Broons, Cubby and D'Arcy, great, an the members will rejoice in the individuals' success.

But, the landscape of Scottish Rugby has to change, to make Marr and similar clubs feel wanted, that they have a purpose.

Of late, the SRU, and mainly SRU PLC, has been concentrating on the professional and performance side of the game. It is time for them to start tending more to the grass roots. If they don't, the grass roots will wither and Scottish rugby will die.