SRU Management - Vee are ze masters now, unt vee vill tell you nuzink

WHEN it comes to commenting on The Junta currently ruining Scottish Rugby, I reckon, aged, decrepit and tired though I am, I am here for the long haul.

The Junta has seen/bought-off the mainstream media, where once the likes of Norman Mair, Bill McLaren or Bill McMurtrie could have, in the most-civil manner have spoken to Bill Hogg about something which was concerning them, had a civilised, but full and frank exchange of views then printed an erudite story which properly explained and tackled the issue. Today, the Junta's approach to the press is clear: “Our way or the highway; if we don't like what you are writing, you will rapidly become a non-person.”

The Herald and The Scotsman have been cowed and brought to heel, and while Alasdair Reid and Mark Palmer at The Times and Sunday Times do a good job in taking them to task when they mess-up, what they can get into their papers is dependent on what is happening in England – they don't allow their Jockistan subsidiaries a great deal of freedom.

Of course, David Barnes and the excellent The Offside Line is a constant irritant to The Junta, but is allowed a degree of freedom to criticise. I reckon because they are scared shitless of what “Wee Barney's” esteemed father, “Big Barney” might do if they come down hard on his son – you don't want to have one of the legendary Green Machine enforcers pinning you to the wall to discuss a matter of family honour.

Then, of course there is that old mad pest down there in Hole in the Wall, Ayrshire.

I spoke with the adjutant on one of the serious papers' sports desks last week, about the Dewhirst Scandal and the ramifications thereof. I had to speak to him, the CO is on leave – he didn't know what I was talking about.

This is the guy running a major newspaper sports desk, a paper where once you had to be a former Scotland cap to get the gig as Rugby Correspondent, that is where Scottish Rugby stands in the media estimation today. The guy running the Sports Desk didn't know about the story that was the talk of every Scottish Rugby club bar.

Clearly, The Junta are in the wrong jobs; they ought to be down there in Whitehall, advising Prime Minister Bo-Jo how: “with a heaving rush, rebellious Scots to crush.”

So, you see, holding The Junta to account, is not easy. And it doesn't help, when you examine the governance/management structure of the Scottish Rugby Union and compare how we run things up here, with what happens elsewhere in these her British Isles:

• SRU – 12-strong main board: 4 paid employees, 4 independent directors, 4 elected directors.
• SRU Council – 17 elected members (who are supposed to oversee the decisions of the main Board). 4 Council members are on the main board
• RFU – 14-strong main board: 3 paid employees, 3 independent directors, 8 elected members
• RFU Council – impossible to find out online, how many members the Council has, but, it may well be close to Will Carling's legendary “57 old farts.”
• WRU – day to day management in the hands of the 8-strong executive board, all paid employees. Their work is overseen by the 11-strong Main Board, comprising 11 elected members plus the Chief Executive
• WRU Council – 12-strong, all elected locally
• IRFU – run by a 25-strong General Committee, all of whom are elected locally. The paid officials answer to them.

As can be seen from the above, of the four Unions, the SRU is the one where the paid officials appear to have most-sway in the big decisions. As is the case elsewhere, ideally, for the security of the member clubs, the true stakeholders in the game, the elected officials should always be in the majority.

This does not happen at Murrayfield, where I can think of at least one paid employee who ought not to be on the main board, with a vote. That vote would be better in the hands of an elected official, in my view.

But, again, a lot depends on the quality of the elected officials put on the board, and, I fear one or two of the current elected/independent board members are too-easily led by the hired help.

Right now, The Junta is in trouble, it needs a good news story to deflect away from a string of depressing ones – and, when they got one, they fucking well blew it.

Leaving aside the disgusting behaviour of the 2018 Under-20 squad, the fact the 2019 Under-20s were so-poor, allied to the absolute pig's breakfast the Union has made of implementing Super-6 and Agenda-3 has meant, constant bad news. The Union has also, and whether this was a good or bad move is still with the jury, seen the loss of their Director of Performance Rugby – Scott Johnson, and left the Union open to suggestions they had taken their eye off the ball.

So, proper distress management demanded that something be done. They already have an independent review of governance procedures under way, being conducted by Bill Gammell.

So, why not a concise press release, something along the lines of:

“Following the recent relegation of the Under-20 squad from the top tier of that age group at world level and a recent unsavoury court case involving a former Under-20 player, while on Scotland duty, the SRU has invited former Fijian Sevens coach Ben Ryan to undertake a review of the Academy and performance structures within the Union.

Mr Ryan is a highly-esteemed expert on such matters and he has carte-blanche to look into all aspects of our age group/performance structures and practices. Mr Ryan will report to the full SRU Board when he has completed his review.”

Something like that would have cut the feet from under the critics and shown a board in control of a nasty situation.

Hiring Ben Ryan should have been shouted from the roof-tops

not left for Mark Palmer to break the story - and well done to him

Instead, nothing, zilch, silence, until Mark Palmer broke the story in yesterday's Sunday Times. Even then, silence from the SRU.

Yes, the SRU's Media Department can produce a readable “good news story,” but, when real PR work is called for, or damage limitation has to be undertaken – their limitations are all-too-quickly evident.

AND FINALLY, it was announced over the weekend that SRU Chairman Colin Grassie and Independent Board Member Lesley Thomas have had their terms of service extended.

The recommendation of the Board's Nominations Committee, that they be re-appointed, well let's say it did not play well in Kansas.

Chairman Grassie's contribution to the Russellgate debate was accepted like a bucket of cold sick by the body of the kirk at last year's agm. He then gave a less than stellar performance at the SGM, after which he, TCD and J Cheever Loophole, the Union's General Counsel were viewed as a Scottish version of The Three Stooges.

I would hazard a guess, Boris Johnson is more-popular in Scotland.

It might be unfair, but, some are seeing Lesley Thomson's re-appointment for undertaking “Mission Impossible,” attempting to polish the turn that was left by TCD's and J Cheever Loophole's mis-handling – no scrub that – world-class balls-up over Russellgate.

For my money, most of the SRU balls-ups in recent years have been in areas which apparently are in the learned Mr Loophole's bailiewick – just saying like.

And another thing: just who are on the Nominations Committee? In any well-run organisation, board members' fields of responsibility are made clear, but not at the SRU, who, in some matters, could give the Freemasons lessons in secrecy.