The Clamour For Change Is Growing

Clubfan20 October 2020 at 07:12

Wouldn't disagree with much of that AA

What I would like to see is involvement of the clubs in the decision making process. This isn't a job for Murrayfield to decide and impose from on high. Clubs need to be actively involved in the formulation of what the future might look like and agree to implementing it

Sadly EH12 doesn't have a good record on that.

THE ABOVE is a below the line comment which was posted following my last item on the blog. It is a comment from one of the more-regular btl commenters, and I think it deserves an in-depth answer.

Of course the clubs need to be involved, but, for this to happen, the members need to be motivated to seek the essential changes which will improve Scottish rugby. Just how we do this is another matter, however.

The key sentence in Clubfan's post is the final one. Changing that situation has to be a priority.

To be fair, I think change is happening. The personnel involved as Council members has changed somewhat in the past two seasons. I believe 10 of the 19 Council members – including the three co-opted members, whose place is in the gift of Murrayfield – are relative newcomers, in only their first or second season on the Council.

The majority are therefore still bedding themselves in and finding their feet. However, they have shown a welcome readiness to challenge the paid officials and instigate if not new then certainly different structures than we have seen in recent years.

It is a widely-held belief that, in the recent past, the clubs have been let down badly by electing Council members who were too-easily influenced by the paid help. It was a wee bit like “The Thick Of It,” where the elected members were shit-scared of the hired help, and it showed. Hopefully, these days are past.

But, change will not be immediate, the new Council has to evolve; the members have to get used to each other and find common ground. I hear, from inside The Murrayfield Big Top, that there is an “edge” to the new faces which is promising – they will not be as easily led as some who have gone.

But, the problem is, getting Council decisions relayed to the member clubs is a convoluted process. The members are mandates to meet quarterly, to review the ongoing activities of the Board and the various departments. However, they also meet for briefing meetings while the Council members are also involved in various working groups within the SRU.

In season 2018-19 for instance, the Council met nine times, approximately once every six weeks – add the working group meetings and that is a considerable part-time commitment.

They then have to liaise with their constituency, the National League members with their 10 or 12 clubs, the Regional League reps with their larger groups of clubs.

Suppose something came up, on which Murrayfield wanted to assess the view of the clubs, before acting. The Council members might be asked to find out what the clubs wanted. So, they would have to put out the information to the clubs, respond to any feed-back, find out what the feeling was, then report back to Murrayfield – probably six weeks later.

Seems ok, but, not every club attends every NL forum meeting, while because of the logistics involved, it appears the Regional League clubs do not meet as-often as might be required for open government and good governance.

So, you might find that half a dozen like-minded guys attending one NL forum could have driven their idea of what should happen some way down the road, before the Regional League clubs had even met.

If the SRU's media and pr department was in any way fit for purpose, perhaps we could see newsletters or briefing papers written in plain English and sent out to the clubs, therefore ensuring better communication between HQ and the clubs. However, I am not holding my breath on that one.

Another alternative, which I hope might be looked into by President Ian Barr's Governance Review Team, might be to initiate a “Scottish Rugby Congress” similar to the Scottish football one, which the SFA runs. This could meet quarterly and bring together all segments of the Scottish Rugby family.

Here the decisions of the Executive and the Council could be challenged, explained and discussed. This would certainly help bring the greater openness within the game which is so sought-after.

I would hate to think all the reflection and thinking time which the pandemic has allowed us to indulge in, in the absence of rugby to talk about, has been wasted and when the Go button is pressed, we simply return to the flawed game we had before the shut down.