Get Gammell Guided Through The Grass Roots

HOW FAR has Scottish Rugby fallen in the concerns ranking of the mainstream media? I ask because, when I first got into the game – even before I first dipped my quill in vitriol to pen my first match report – it ranked pretty highly.

Back in those black and white days, even the Daily Record and the Daily Express, fighting their battle to be the dominant paper in Scotland, had their own dedicated staff member who covered rugby. But, the real battle-ground for media influence was fought between the then Glasgow Herald and The Scotsman.

Bill McMurtrie of the Herald could converse as an equal with the SRU High Heid Yins, while of course, “The Voice” had a weekly column in the Herald. Across on North Bridge, Norman Mair, having forgiven the selectors for terminating his Scotland career with undue haste, was a major influence; after all, he had played with and against most of the “blazers” and, as such, when he spoke – they listened.

Today, where once the big decisions were taken by the ELECTED officials, who instructed the hired help, we want you to do this – now; the position today seems to be, the elected officials are told by the help – this is what we are going to do, now back us.

May I remind those elected officials of the wise words of Ian McLauchlan, speaking in 2011 – before TCD had even been hired:

"You have to let the rugby people get on with running the rugby side of things."

The above is, however, a slight diversion off the point I am making at this stage. Back in the day, what the papers said was important, and rugby was important to the papers. These days, the order of importance, of even the “traditional” rugby-covering papers: The Herald and The Scotsman, is:

1. Rangers
   
   
2. Celtic
   
   
3. Scotland
   
   
4. (The Scotsman – Hearts and Hibs)
   
   
5. The English Premiership
   
   
6. European Football
   
   
7. Andy Murray
   
   
8. The Scotland Rugby Team
   
   
9. Edinburgh and Glasgow
   
   
10. Golf
    
    
11. Curling
    
    
12. Agency-generated cheap copy
    
    
13. OK, We will mention club rugby

These days, if you want to know what is happening inside the game in Scotland, where once you turned to The Herald or Scotsman, your first port of call is David Barnes' splendid THE OFFSIDE LINE.

And yesterday, Big Barney, a couple of days behind this blog it should be noted, turned his guns on the SRU's habit of finding “friends” or “insiders” to conduct “independent” reviews of controversial events or issues – the latest being Sir Bill Gammell's governance review.

Few, if anybody, in the body of the Scottish Rugby “kirk” honestly believes that Sir Bill is either independent or unconstrained in this latest job. In his piece, Barney mentions “cronyism,” I could not agree more with this analysis.

I wish Bill Gammell well in his task, but, again to agree with Barney – he has been put in an impossible position in this endeavour.

To again take a wee detour. I only ever spoke to the late, departed 'Lesser-Spotted Johnson,' former Director of Rugby Scott Johnson once. This was at the Macron kit-supply launch, at Archerfield, a few years ago now. I mentioned club rugby to him – it was like a portcullis slamming down, he clearly wasn't interested.

 You're more-likely to see Nessie at a club game than TCD or MH33

There have been suggestions that the LSJ and TCD had been spotted at at least one Currie home game, a couple of years ago. I have also had unconfirmed reports of MH33 – Chief Operating Officer Dominic McKay, being seen at club games, but, there are fewer sightings of the trio watching ordinary rugby than of the Loch Ness Monster.

So, here's an idea, which I commend to the Good Guys on the SRU Council, and there are a few good guys in there, who put in a Hell of a lot of hard work for Scottish Rugby.

Draw up a list and over the course of a season or however long it takes, every Saturday, one of you takes TCD and MH33 to a club game. But, mix them up: a Premiership game one week, a Regional League match the next. That way, they would meet the men that mattered in at least two clubs every week. In very short order, they would know how the troops felt about things, and, it could make a big difference to how Scottish Rugby feels about itself, and how it is managed.

Using the same road map, Sir Bill Gammell could be taken round the clubs, to fully gauge how they felt the governance of the game might be improved for the greater good of the game.

This seems like a sensible notion to me, and I commend it to the House.

I WAS somewhat annoyed at the Scotland Under-20s losing to Georgia, in Rosario, the other day. Not because I have a profound belief that, just because we are Scotland, who were involved in the very first rugby international back in 1871, we therefore have a divine right to win every game. None of that English thinking for me.

No, what really irked me was the way we lost. Not for the first time, not for the tenth time, perhaps for the one-hundred and somethingth time, a Scottish side lost – basically because our hooker and our line-out jumpers failed to execute a simple line-out ploy in a pressure situation.

This has been happening since Ross Ford's caps tally was in single figures and Fraser Brown and Stuart McInally were flankers. Winning lines-out aint rocket science.

When I played for Cumnock 2^nd XV back in the very early 1960s, wingers threw in. We had a winger who was border-line learning difficulties. I actually admired the guy for playing the game, at which he was not very good. However, he did have one wonderful attribute. Provided you told him exactly who to throw it to, he would deliver the perfect throw, every time.

Now, if a guy who wore his IQ on his back – and back then the full-back was number one, - could hit his jumper, every time; well, why cannot present-day, full-time players do this? It is becoming embarrassing, and it is unnecessary.