This Has Been A Bad Week For The SRU

THIS HAS not been a good week for the SRU. With the Scottish Rugby Family still on an extreme downer – and nobody does woe, woe and thrice woe and doomed, we are awe doomed with quite the extreme emotion of the Scots – some of BT Murrayfield's decisions didn't help.

Sheila Begbie - had to take a hospital pass with the player numbers

Sheila Begbie is one of Scottish sport's finest administrators, and I believe, given time and resources, she will be seen as a great Director of Rugby Development, but, she was given a hospital pass with the figures she had to release for player numbers, through the new SCRUMS data.

Nobody I have spoken to believes there are anything like 11,000 active adult rugby players in Scotland. Indeed, I have had senior club administrators tell me – if there is even half that number, we are doing well.

I have kept a check on the number of unplayed matches already this season, and well over half of these are 2^nd XV matches – some clubs are really struggling to raise more than one team – this is unsustainable.

I know Sheila and her staff are trying to help the clubs, but, quite clearly, fewer and fewer of today's young men are willing to play competitive rugby these days.

I had to give-up serious rugby at a young age, but, I continued, whenever the demands of journalism allowed, to enjoy social, or to be more accurate and to use my old pal Michael Green's wonderful description: “Coarse Rugby,” for many years.

It was an enjoyable way to work up a thirst – I don't see that level of rugby, low though it was, but still enjoyable, being played today.

Now, the SRU's overall management plan for the game is simple:

• We concentrate our resources on producing a winning Scotland team, playing attractive rugby
• This fills BT Murrayfield
• Thereby generating the funds to keep the game going

BUT

• If the SRU is unable (or more-correctly unwilling) to find commercial partners to offset the huge costs of funding professional sport
• Running the professional game eats up more and more of the income
• There is less to feed down to the clubs – the ultimate owners of the SRU
• The club game withers on the vine
• We don't produce good enough professional players
• Scotland loses more and more games
• The fans stop turning up at Murrayfield
• We are on our way to Hell in a hand cart

That is the reality. We are not in trouble at the moment, but, the portents do not look good and as one influential club man said to me before heading off to Japan: “We are maybe two bad Six Nations away from disaster.”

And, The Junta need not think the perceived riches from CVC will save the jerseys, some people are already beginning to whisper, if we don't get a grip and sort out the Governance issues – which Bill Gammell and Norman Murray are already looking at, perhaps as early as the 2027 Rugby World Cup:

SCOTLAND COULD BE A TIER TWO NATION.

We need to sort ourselves out – URGENTLY.

I don't have the answer, but, I do feel we need to separate the competitive/performance side of the game from the social or “community side”; get more people playing for fun – those with the talent and drive to succeed in a competitive, semi-professional or professional game will still come through, but, we will have more people enjoying fun rugby.

Here's an idea which has been buzzing around my massive rugby brain this week.

I used to cover ice hockey, that's a game which, at professional or semi-professional level, is even-more brutal than rugby. But, there is another type of ice hockey, which can still be enjoyed by pensioners of my age.

Recreational ice hockey is a very popular game. The participants still need the padding and safety equipment of the full-fat game, but, the rules have been amended to take-out the really hard hits, the body checking and the fighting of the real game.

Surely there are enough great brains inside the rugby family to come up with a form of recreational rugby which emphasises the good points of our great game, but eliminates the bad stuff. Now, there's a challenge, coming up with an amended game which people want to play and enjoy playing.

It perhaps suits Murrayfield's intentions to have more spectators than players - “Fewer but stronger” anyone – but, we still need to have people playign rugby of some sort if the game is to flourish.

Right now, I am starting to worry if the game has a future in Scotland.

Another worrying trend which I have spotted is the mismatch.

To date this season, in club rugby, between adult male games and male youth and schools rugby, 527 games have been played. Of these 112, or 21% have seen a 40 points plus winning margin.

That isn't healthy, heavy defeats soon make the players on the receiving end question why they play, and wonder if it worth the pain. This leads to a drop-off in numbers and the death spiral continues.

What has been worrying has been – some of the teams being thrashed are well-known, long-established clubs. OK, I accept, form is cyclical, but when you see the same, well-respected clubs, being thumped every week, it is a major concern.

I have also noted, in the Schools conferences, great rugby-playing schools, which have been producing full internationalists for as long as Scotland has been playing the game, struggling to fulfil fixtures.

Murrayfield – you may have a bigger problem coming

And don't get me started on the Glasgow Warriors' game.