The "Hoovers" Have Been Switched On

GAVIN BLACKBURN, Coach of West of Scotland, had a justifiable moan on Facebook yesterday – about the early effects of Super-6.

West coach Gavin Blackburn

Apparently, a S6 club has recruited some players from a Tennent's Premiership club, who have, in turn raided West to fill the gaps in their squad. Now, I well know, people in rugby have long memories, and there will be some who will say: “So what, what goes around comes around,” and refer to the days when, as the leading club in the West of Scotland, Burnbrae was the destination of choice for ambitious rugby players from west of Harthill.

It is also a fact of life, players have always moved, but, it now seems as if those who prophesied that S6 would see: “the hoovering-up of talented and ambitious players by a handful of clubs,” may well be on the money.

It might also be that this is a short-lived phenomena, or even that it is an isolated incident. What happens recruitment-wise between now and the kick-off of the leagues in late August will tell us more.

However, it does under-pin, those who said Super-6/Agenda-3 was ill-thought-out, might have a point.

It all comes down to making the best of our home-grown talent, and how we accomplish this. For the record, the -Aristotle Armstrong view is:

• Best practice – Scotland's full-time professional teams run their talent development scheme, utilising the best young talent in the country and running the Academy system.
  
  
• For this to work best, we need at least three, and preferably four, full-time professional sides, perhaps with at least one of these a designated “development” team.
  
  
• Failing this, we revert to a District system for elite player identification and development.
  
  
• Failing this, we go with Super-6.
  
  

There are undoubtedly some good points around S6/A3, however, the entire scheme has been badly-managed by The Junta at Murrayfield:

• There never appeared to be a Master Plan which could be SOLD to the clubs
  
  
• There was little or no consultation
  
  
• Some absolutely daft decisions were made – not least the three franchisaes in Edinburgh
  
  
• The whole thing seemed to be being made-up as we went along.
  
  

Which explains the current chaos

We are now too far down the line to re-boot to a new default position; things will not be pretty this coming season.

It will be interesting to see what happens once Sir Bill Gammell and Norman Murray have taken their revival of 'Brush Strokes' round the clubs: will there whitewash obscure a few failings, or, will it throw light into some dark corners and make things better.

Of course, it would help if we knew into what particular areas of governance and the general management of the game in rugby they are charged with looking into.

HERE'S WHAT I think should happen

• We acknowledge – there are three levels of rugby in Scotland
  
  
• Performance rugby – the national sides (including the Sevens and the age group squads); the Super-6 franchises
  
  
• “Semi-professional” rugby – the National League clubs
  
  
• “Amateur” rugby – the Regional League clubs
  
  

As I have said, by going for Option-3, the Super-6, Murrayfield has almost certainly picked the wrong option, they ought to have gone with three or four full-time pro sides, failing that, Glasgow and Edinburgh having reserve development teams. But, they didn't, and for at least the next five years, we are stuck with S6.

The six franchises (which we acknowledge should have had a broader geographic spread) should be under the control of the Performance Department at Murrayfield – which should be run by a Director of Rugby. Appointing a DoR is a matter of urgency.

“Semi-Professional” or “National League” rugby also need radical overhaul:

• We have too-many National Leagues, and too-many National League clubs.
  
  
• There should be pre-determined standards before a club is granted NL status.
  
  
• In infrastructure, these clubs should have floodlights, a grandstand, fully-enclosed grounds. There ought to be a determined move, as with Performance Rugby, towards these clubs having 3G pitches, and, in the longer term, money being available – indoor training facilities
  
  
• NL clubs should have at least two adult teams, and a proper youth development programme which meets pre-determined criteria.
  
  

I know, some are going to read this and immediately shout: “That's fewer but stronger, which is wrong.”

Yes, it will mean fewer clubs being “National League” clubs, and yes, these clubs will be stronger, but, it will make life easier for the lowest tier – the Amateur” clubs.

These clubs would then be free to simply get people playing rugby, at a local level. Perhaps not all rugby would have to be full-fat, 15-a-side rugby. The SRU ought to be allowing smaller clubs to play ten-a-side rugby if that's all the players they could muster – but, at that level, the answer is to get people playing, the cream will continue, as it always has, to rise to the top, provided we take talent identification seriously, and encourage the guys and girls who show promise, to move up.

We also need, with a view to the future, to build bridges between clubs and schools. There is no better place in which to get kids interested in playing rugby than in the schools.

When I was being introduced to rugby as a First Year schoolboy, our PE teacher at Cumnock Academy, Jock “Stiffy” McClure, was a war-time and “Victory” cap, who was very-unlucky never to gain a full cap. He played for Ayr, Wasps, Glasgow and for The British Empire, against France at the end of WWII. He was a rugby fanatic.

But, he was not alone, all of the Ayrshire Senior Secondary schools – the Academies at Ayr, Kilmarnock, Irvine Royal and Ardrossan, Marr College and Spiers School at Beith, each had a rugby fanatic as Head of PE, with enthusiastic active players taking a year team.

Out of these schools came, when I was at school: from Ayr Academy: internationalists Ian McLauchlan and Gordon Strachan, plus the players who were the backbone of Ayr's rise from semi-junior to full “championship” satatus. Marr College gave us Peter and Gordon Brown and Bill Cuthbertson, plus another bunch of very good players who moved on to bigger clubs.

Kilmarnock Academy was the font from which Kilmarnock RFC followed Ayr into the top-flight. David -and Ian Gray went there, as did the likes of David Good, Richard Allen and others who broke into the Glasgow XV. Irvine Royal gave us John and Al McHarg, plus a lot of other guys who would move to bigger clubs. Ardrossan Academy gave us Ian Murchie, and Brian and Jimmy Gossman, plus a few others who went to bigger clubs. Spiers School produced David Shedden and Alec Wilson.

As a fledgling sports writer in the 1970s and early 1980s, I watched the likes of John, David and Alan Brown, Steve Munro and Tony Adair and Willie Reddox from Ayr Academy, that great Marr College side which reached the first Scottish Schools Cup Final,. At the same time, Kilmarnock Academy were still a power in the land, producing the likes of Hugh Hamilton.

Indeed, last week, on the Rugby Memories Scotland page on Facebook, someone posted the programme from the Glasgow v Australia match in 1984. Nine of the starting XV came from Ayrshire, six of them products of the county's state schools.

That, of course, was before the effects of the teachers' strike came to be felt. After that, it could be argued that only the late and much-missed Brian Gilbert and John Sharkey at Marr College kept rugby at their school going to the same extent as before the big stramash.

The clubs have never quite plugged the gap. We have the odd good initiative, Ayr's Glen Tippett and Stuart Fenwick have worked hard to re-establish rugby at some schools, and build a bridge from these schools to their club. Harry Reilly has done great work in this respect at Cumnock, while Gordon Brown has done similarly sterling and even-more successful missionary work at Carrick Academy/Carrick RFC. While I can only really speak about what is going on in God's County, I am certain there are similar good news stories across Scotland.

What - I am assured by people who know more about this than I – would help, is if the SRU would drop their stupid not playing twice over a weekend rule.

Personally, I feel, if the SRU, the clubs and schools got their acts together properly, we would use the schools to introduce the kids to the game, with the more-promising raw talent fed into the local club for polishing. For this to work, we would need to recruit and train more grass-roots coaches, to go into the schools and “sell” rugby; then ensure, the really promising talent is fed into the clubs.

Only a very few will ever make it through to the performance side of the game, but, if the rest continue to play for fun at an amateur club level, it is a win-win situation.

We really need to try harder, work harder and make harder decisions. Do we have the governance system, and more-importantly, the people in key positions within the game to make this reality?