O'Reilly's Corollary and General Melchett - Management Murrayfield Style

MY LATE elder brother suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, and yes, it does appear to run in our family – to silence those who sometimes question Aristotle's thought processes when they read this blog. However, my brother's condition did not stop him getting his degree and enjoying a lengthy career as a rocket scientist.

He had some interesting theories, indeed he was a firm believer in O'Reilly's Corollary. Basically, O'Reilly's Corollary: “Dat Murphy always was an optimist,” is a response to Murphy's Law. The brother, after a spell on secondment with NASA at Cape Kennedy in Florida, also introduced me to that great American saying: “Iwhen you're up to your ass in alligators, it's difficult to remember, you are supposed to be draining the swamp.”

And, I feel, in trying to drain the swamp of Scottish Rugby Governance, perhaps the dream team of Gavin MacColl QC and Gemmell & Murray, specialist white-wash appliers might soon discover the veracity of O'Reilly's Corollary.

These thoughts came into my head as I reviewed yesterday's breath-taking announcement of the 30 Stage Three “Students” within the Fosroc Scottish Rugby Academy.

The Class of 2019-20 comprises:

13 players carried-over from last season: Connor Boyle (Watsonians), Rory Darge (Melrose), Roan Frostwick (Currie Chieftains), Shaun Gunn (Edinburgh Accies), Cameron Henderson (Stirling County), Euan McLaren (Ayr), Rufus McLean (Watsonians), Finlay Scott (Jed-Forest), Ollie Smith and Marshall Sykes (Ayr), Ross Thompson (Glasgow Hawks), Murphy Walker (Stirling County), Dan Winning (Boroughmuir).


• 13 promoted Stage Two players: Gregor Brown (Robert Gordon’s College/Gordonians), Matt Currie (Merchiston Castle School), Angus Fraser (Glasgow Hawks), Dan Gamble (Merchiston Castle School), Jacob Henry (Melrose), Grant Hughes (Stirling County), Rory Jackson 1 (Edinburgh Academy/Accies), Rory Jackson 2 (Kelvinside Academy), Charlie Jupp (Heriot’s), Kristian Kay (Glasgow Hawks), Scott King (Heriot’s), Jack Mann (Edinburgh Accies), Cameron Scott (George Watson’s College)
  
  
• 4 newcomers, who include 2 “Exiles” joining from the “Scotland-Qualified” programme: Sam Grahamslaw (Leicester Tigers), Robbie McCallum (Complutence Cisneros), Harry Paterson (Fettes College / Edinburgh Accies), Nathan Sweeney (Loretto School/Musselburgh).
  
  

All fairly straight-forward, until you factor-in the SRU system. As I understand it, as full-time students/players, their time is split between working at one of the four Academy campuses, in Aberdeen, Cumbernauld, Edinburgh and Galashiels, blocks with Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors and time spent with the six Super-6 franchises at Ayr, Boroughmuir, Heriot's Melrose, Stirling and Watsonians. Each of the six franchises will have five of the Stage Three students drafted to them.

And, as if that isn't complicated enough, we are told, when not required by their Super-6 club, they will be subject to a secondary draft, to a Tennent's Premiership club.

Good luck to them, in particular those specialists such as hooker Finlay Scott or line-out jumpers such as Charlie Jupp, Cameron Henderson or Marshall Sykes. They will have to learn three lots of line-out codes, for the PRO14, Super-6 and Premiership clubs to which they are attached.

The drafts will also be interesting: 15 of them are already attached to Super-6 sides; Ayr, Melrose (if we assume Finlay Scott, who was dual-registered with Melrose and Jed-forest last season is tied to Melrose), Stirling County and Watsonians each has a claim on three of the 30. Heriot's have a claim on two players and Boroughmuir on one, leaving 15 players to be drafted to their Super-6 club.

Now let's look at the secondary Premiership “draft”, since Murrayfield has decided the young players also need an alliance with one of the ten Premiership sides. Going by the protocol for the Super-6, we must assume, that's three of the players going to each of the ten clubs. Fair enough, except, four of them already are part of the Edinburgh Accies system, Glasgow Hawks already have their three, and Currie, Jed-forest and Musselburgh one player each,leaving 21 players to be drafted.

The stupidity of the franchise fuck-up, when TCD's original boast that, if no club from Caledonia Region, north of the Forth came up with a bid, the SRU would set-up their own franchise there, proved to be mere posturing, and three franchises somehow landed in Edinburgh; is demonstrated by the case of young Gregor Brown from Aberdeen.

He might perhaps be drafted to Aberdeen Grammar in the Premiership, but, he will need to travel to the central belt for his Super-6 commitments and his blocks with the professional sides.

You could not make this up easily. All we need is for the SRU to hire the off-screen narrator from the old American TV show “Soap”, to over-dub who ended every Murrayfield announcement with: “Confused, you will be, as you try to unravel the latest thought processes of the Murrayfield Junta.”

As another of the Murrayfield Midges, (that's those of us who are buzzing around Scottish rugby, hugely-annoying the SRU by pointing-out their inadequacies in the governance field) said to me last week: “Aristotle, you keep going on about the broken arrows inside HQ, but, I worry more about the broken bows, which cannot fire these broken arrows.” He has a point.

But, as we are becoming aware, we live in the age of “Melchett Management” - the SRU, like the current Conservative government appears to be following the advice of that Great War Leader, who said: