Money Blindness In Professional Rugby

MADNESS, we are told, is keeping doing the same thing – which hasn't worked – in the hope of a different outcome. I fear, when Rugby Union eventually escapes from the current Covid-19 nightmare, we may see, at the highest professional club level, the same sort of madness which has got these leading clubs into trouble.

Scottish Rugby Union Ltd, (as opposed to The Scottish Rugby Union – there is a difference) owns and runs Scotland's two full-time professional teams: Edinburgh and Glasgow. Thanks to The Junta's ongoing ability to hide their accounts behind more smoke and mirrors than Paul Daniels, Penn and Teller, David Copperfield, Ali Bongo and David Nixon combined ever could, just how much running these two teams costs the SRU each year is an even more-deeply buried state secret than all the political/royal scandals you might care to name. But, we can surmise, running these two teams is a costly, loss-making business.

But, compared to the financial black hole which is England's Gallagher Premiership, or the Welsh regions, we in Scotland are probably running a tight ship. Just this week, The Guardian ran a story in which Stephen Vaughan, Wasps' Chief Executive suggested every top club in England is running at a loss.

However, in spite of this revelation, which hardly came as a surprise given the clubs' record of reporting losses in recent seasons, the suggestion is: it should be business as usual when the lockdown ends.

Charles Piutau - Bristol want to go on paying him megabucks

There are some suggestons England's salary cap and “marquee players” regulations might need to be tightened-up. However, not all the clubs are singing from the same hymn sheet on this – Bristol Bears – owned by Guernsey-based billionaire Stephen Lansdown, for instance, want to carry-on as before, paying £1 million per year salaries to the likes of Charles Piutau.

Billionaires such as Lansdown, or Saracens' Nigel Wray may well be able to survive the pandemic better than most, that might well embolden them to play hard ball with the various Unions when it comes to controlling players etc. It will be interesting to see how things pan out.

My view? Well some years back, in the column he then wrote for The Herald, John Beattie suggested professionalism in rugby might lead in time to a hybrid form of the game, taking the better elements from both Rugby League and Rugby Union. This game, which (if memory serves me correctly) the former Lion turned media luvvie suggested might simply be called “Rugby” would be bankrolled by a media conglomerate and have very narrow depth.

Below this elite level, the two codes would simply carry-on as before. The two codes would co-exist side by side, continuing to offer sport at whatever level, below elite, at which the players wished to play.

Beattie's concept might have “legs” when we come out of the pandemic.

I HAVE mentioned Marr man Jim Park, currently doing missionary work in the Sudentenland, in this blog before. Last week Jim sent me a clipping from the New Zealand Herald; apparently, in an effort to get play resumed sooner rather than later, the great brains of World Rugby are considering which possible law amendments might be required, in view of the contact aspects of Rugby Union not sitting well with “social distancing.”

Among the things being looked at, apparently, is a move to temporarily outlaw scrums and mauls. I don't know, could your average English professional cope with a game in which the ball would be in-play for an additional 20 minutes – the time we would gain from all those needless scrum resets? And, without the maul what would they do?

Other suggestions include making lines out uncontested. For me, if the referees are not going to start policing scrums properly, and the powers-that-be are not interested in properly sorting-out the unfair mess which the maul has become, then why bother.

Could Tag Rugby be the resumption point?

We could start our return to play by playing that New Zealand form of touch rugby, involving strips, attached to shorts by velcro - “Tag Rugby” I think they call it. At least, that would get the players running about, and into the habit of tackling low.

I think, given the contact element of the game, it will be a long time yet before we see rugby resume. Maybe by the time we do, hard fiscal facts will have forced reality on the decision-makers at the top of the game.

THERE ARE two waitresses who are legends in world sport. The first is “Heidi,” the friendly fraulein who offered home comforts to (allegedly) half the Scotland squad at the 1974 World Cup in Germany. The second is “Suzie,” the South African lady who supposedly “poisoned” several All Blacks prior to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Final.

Well, the New Zealand herald has, nicely-timed to fit in with today being the 25^th anniversary of that tournament starting, run a story in which the Head of Security for that tournament points out the obvious, saying: “The All Blacks who contracted food poisoning had all eaten sea food, everyone knows seafood is a source of food poisoning, it was their own fault.”

Good to know, there is no time limit on ill-feeling between Saffers and Kiwis.

FINALLY – the latest tweet from “The twittermeister,” former Scotland prop Gordon Reid, is well up to the high standard of tomfoolery Big Gordy has maintained over the past year. Following-on from his exploits in Japan, his songs of praise to Irn-Bru and Buckfast, and his Kurt Russell cameo as a life-saving hero of a fire, the latest Reid video clip, posted on Facebook over the weekend, has him roller-blading along Ayr Promenade.

The Mossblown, rather than the Kansas City Bomber

The sight of a 19 stone prop forward, on roller blades, cutting a swathe along the Lang Scots Mile on the seafront will surely do wonders for Ayr's rebirth as a holiday destination.

No offence Gordy, but, I'd rather watch Racquel

Get Gordy back playing – he has finally flipped.