Honestly - They Couldnae Run A Bath

ONCE AGAIN I find myself shaking my head in wonder at the machinations of the SRU's Media Department. To be blunt, they are a team which makes Fort William FC look like winners, and their ability to fuck things up is on-par with that of the current Toerag government in Westminster.

Basically, as I see it, The Junta of hired hands inside BT Murrayfield are simply not interested in the club game. The SRU's business model at present calls for: 

• A successful – WINNING Scotland team
• Filling Murrayfield
• To generate the funds to keep Scottish Rugby going

There is, however, a sub-text to this:

• The successful Scotland team requires players comfortable at this level
• Which means Scottish players comfortable playing at a high level in professional rugby – the English Premiership, the French Top 14 and the PRO14
• Which means we need competitive (and hopefully successful) Scottish teams in the PRO14

Ideally, the PRO14 teams should be (to use an old phrase around the SRU)

• “with but not of the Union”
• i.e. independent of the union, but, with perhaps union representation on the board

However, for various reasons:

• Lack of commercial interest in professional rugby
• The SRU default position of “control freakery”
• Past bitter experience (the Carruthers Brothers)

This is not going to happen

As I see it, these factors have conspired to produce a situation within the SRU's “civil service” whereby the professional and performance side of the game has absolute priority over the larger sector of Scottish rugby – the “amateur” club game.

That was shown this morning, when the draw for the last 16 of the Scottish Cup was almost sneaked-out under cover of darkness.

This is, to be honest, a cracking draw, which, if there was anyone inside the SRU's Media Department with the first clue about selling, far less spinning a story, would/should have attracted a lot of media interest.

It didn't happen. The story was badly under-sold, yet another own goal for Chief Elf Buddy Horler and the Crickets.

For the record, the last 16 draw, with the ties to be played on Saturday, 26 October, is:

Ayr v Marr

Boroughmuir v Jed-Forest

Edinburgh Academical v Musselburgh

Gala v Kelso

Hawick v Cartha-Queen's Park

Heriot's Blues v GHA

Highland v Stirling Wolves

Selkirk v Currie Chieftains

The stand-out tie is surely the first one, with the Ayr Club XV, who of course play in Tennent's National League 1, entertaining near-neighbours Marr, from the Tennent's Premiership.

This South Ayrshire Derby will attract a big crowd to Millbrae, to see if Stuart Fenwick's young Ayr XV can keep the cup-holders' defence of the trophy going, at the expense of their near neighbours.

Then, of course there is the obvious desire of Marr and former Ayr Coach Craig Redpath and his men to demonstrate that their higher status, as a Premiership team, can upset the accepted pecking order in God's County. The banter around the ropes will be great too.

But, elsewhere, there are some cracking ties in prospect: a genuine Borders battle between Gala and Kelso; three all-Premiership clashes, at Raeburn Place, and Philiphaugh, and a chance for Highland to knock over another Super-6 franchise's club XV, when  they entertain Stirling Wolves. It is an exciting draw.

BUT, perhaps a bigger mess-up came around the announcement of the final 31-man World Cup squad.

Making a big showpiece occasion of the announcement struck me as a good idea, it certainly fits in with #AS ONE, and continued the SRU's commendable approach of keeping the squad accessible to the fans, who ultimately pay them.

However, this is Scotland, we are enjoying what I am sure is our wettest summer for years, so, holding the announcements outdoor, was always going to be a risk.

Given the weather we have been having, I might have thought the notion of holding it at Oriam might have crossed the great brains insie BTM. Watching the announcement on the BBC webstream, I had this feeling: “Jings, crivvens, help ma Boab, I hope Greig Laidlaw doesn't catch pneumonia standing out there.”

Now, I appreciate with the squad learning who was in and who was out on Monday, it was always going to be difficult to keep the finals quad under wraps. This 24-hour delay was always a challenge to the media – mindful as we are of George Orwell's differentiation between news and public relations.

Of course, as a non-person in the eyes of Chief Elf Buddy, I was never going to get advance warning of the final roster. But, while I wasn't that bothered about that, the fact everyone and his brother, who was interested, knew the squad on Monday night, and could therefore show what wonderful forecasters they were, by running speculative squads on the Monday morning, which were identical to the final squad, shows the media managers at BTM didn't manage matters well.

Worse than that, however, was the fact, while one department inside the BBC was given EXCLUSIVE rights to broadcast the event on its website, another department scooped them by breaking the news on Tuesday morning. This is unacceptable.

But, while Buddy and the Junta will do all they can to silence and inconvenience a blogger in East Ayrshire whom they see as a trouble-maker, they will happily allow BBC Scotland to piss on them from a great height.

BBC Scotland's Scottish Rugby web page carries 15 stories, at least three of which could be said to be out-of-date, events having overtaken the subject matter. Of these 15 stories, one concerns Glasgow Warriors putting Ollie Kebble on a contract extension, the other 14 are about the World Cups squad or Georgia.

The fact is, to every national mainstream media outlet, with the honourable exception of Scotland on Sunday and The Scotsman:

Scottish Rugby beneath the PRO14 is not worth covering

This is due to change, to an extent, once Super-6 kicks-off, but, the fact is, club rugby in Scotland does not register to the decision-makers in the mainstream media.

Memo – to Buddy and his department. If the media chooses to ignore you – become the media and by-pass them, by either working harder yourself, or, by supporting the guys who will not ignore you.