Are We Mad - Or Are We Uncaring?

IF INSANITY is repeatedly doing the same thing in the hope of a different outcome, then Insanity must be the default setting within BT Murrayfield.

I say this, without fear of contradiction, after a quick check at the Scotland Under-20 team's record – not just in the now concluded Under-20 Six Nations, but, from the team was started back in 2007.

The Under-20 team's complete record, since that date reads:

Played 120 – Won 35 – Drawn 1 – Lost 84 – wins percentage 12.5%

We used to regularly beat the Italians, but, they've turned that around, we've only beaten England once, Ireland four times, Wales three times. We've never beaten France, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa. Perhaps, beating the Southern Hemisphere big guns would be asking too-much, but, we have to have ambitions in that direction.

We simply have to admit it, when it comes to elite young player development, we have never got it right.

As I wrote, the Under-20s have been the top age group side only since 2007. From 1984, when we first dipped our toe in the waters of age group internationals, by facing The Netherlands, until 2006 – it was the Under-21 team which was the standard bearer. Their results are slightly better than those at Under-20 level, but for all that, are nothing to write home about:

Played 106 – Won 32 – Drawn 2 – Lost 72 – wins percentage 30.2%

We have handed responsibility for coaching the team to several coaches, but, it doesn't appear to matter who we put in-charge, our results are still mince. Might it be – our entire player development system is wrong?

OK, we accept, we've got the shallowest player pool, Rugby Union in Scotland is seen as the game for the private schools, not a lot of state schools offer regular rugby. However, our club scene is vibrant at youth level, but, received wisdom has it, far-too-few of the guys playing up to Under-18 level, either at school or for their clubs, seem to transition into the adult game.

As I see it, our problems at age group level are manifold:

• Too narrow a playing base

• Too many young players not transitioning into adult rugby

• Elitism is institutionalised – certain private schools have too-much influence

• A perception we don't spread the net wide enough when talent spotting

• A perception, our talent identification isn't great

• Is our Academy system working, or even fit for purpose?

• Do we have a fall-back system for identifying slower or later developers?

• Players who are in the system not getting enough game time

• Coaching young players is time-consuming – are we recruiting and maintaining enough youth coaches?

• Are they – the coaches – well-enough trained themselves?

• Are we doing a good enough job in selling rugby to youngsters, in the face of some poor publicity regarding head knocks etc?

Late last year, the SRU announced that Rob Chrystie was leaving Southern Knights to become Edinburgh Academy Head Coach, working with the capital side's top young talent – their Stage III Academy players.

Shouldn't somebody be appointed to a similar role with Glasgow?

We have problems at full international level, but, these are nowhere as great as the problems we have at age group level. This is the future, if we don't get it right here, that future is bleak. Surely, sorting out the bourach that is the youth development programme has to be the priority going forward.

This focus on our under-performing Under-20s comes at the start of Schools Week, with the SRU Media department trumpeting how they are delivering rugby to 623 state primary and secondary schools the length and breadth of Scotland.

Great, but, the test of whether or not this works will be, if we have more kids turning-up on a Saturday or Sunday morning to play regularly for their clubs. Then, several years down the line, seeing how many transition from youth to adult rugby.

Are the clubs all on-board? Are they geared-up for an influx of new blood? Do they have the infrastructure to cope? That's the true test. In a lot of cases, Ah hae ma doots.

When I was a young pup, upsetting people in power in rugby with my youthful enthusiasm and failure to follow the (unwritten) rules, I enjoyed covering schools games. I was a regular on the touchlines at Old Racecourse, covering Ayr Academy games. It was here I saw a young St Aloysius prop and just knew, Gerry McGuinness would one day wear the thistle. Here too I watched the development of the likes of Stevie Munro and the Brown brothers, and first encountered that force of nature that is Anthony ST Adair.

Back then, there were inter-county schools games and, the Scottish Schools team was not 90% private school boys. I still recall one of the great Daily Record getting it all wrong stories, from the 1970s.

The Scottish Thistles (The Scottish Schools XV in disguise) took themselves off on an end-of-season tour to the then apartheid-banned South Africa and politically-banned Rhodesia. The tour ended with a game, as a warm-up to a big adult game, in front of 90,000 fans at Ellis Park.

The Daily Record, needless to say, was outraged. They sent a snapper to Glasgow Airportto take a picture of the boys leaving. Some duly obliged by clowning for the camera and with youthful zest, pulling faces. The caption referred to, as I recall: “young rugby-playing gentlemen from some of Scotland's finest schools, setting-off to play rugby in banned South Africa.” The only problem was, all of them, were pupils at state schools. Couldn't happen today and that's maybe why we're in a mess. Our player base is too-narrow.

As I say, I remember the Ayrshire Schools side, which played against Renfrewshire and fed into the Glasgow Schools side. Ayrshire was the starting point for a few distinguished careers – future Scotland captains Peter Brown and Ian McLauchlan and internationalists such as Alistair McHarg, David Shedden, Gordon Strachan and Steve Munro, to name but a few.

I spoke to some current and former teachers who support schools rugby, and they reckon County representative teams died after the teachers' strike – which is nearly 40 years ago now. John Sharkey, who along with the late Brian Gilbert, kept schools rugby going at Marr College, when it died elsewhere on the back of the strike, remembers, in addition to the games with Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire and so on, in the sorting-out selection process around the Glasgow Schools side, fixtures against The North, in Aberdeen, Dumfries and Galloway and Midlands B. However, as he says: “The strike was the effective end of the representative team.” Maybe time we brought it back.

Since then, we've had Pathways, bridle ways, slipways, railways, motorways, avenues and alleyways, every which way but loose ways, and we've seemingly gone backwards.

I went onto the Schools and Youth Rugby area on the SRU website. In Schools rugby, they list 40 schools as participating in official SRU competitions. Of these 20 are in the private sector, there are only 15 State schools participating, plus a further four school-club combinations and a single collaboration between a State and a Private school.

Twenty-seven clubs are listed as playing in the SRU's national youth club competitions, with a further 40 clubs listed as competing at some stage in the Regional competitions. Of these 67 teams, six are inter-club collaborations, three are club-school collaborations, three are collaborations of several teams, while Gordonstoun School plays in the Cl;ub rather than the School competition.

There are 357 State secondary schools in Scotland, of whom only 15 appear to play organised rugby, with a further seven playing in collaboration with their local club. I am not saying all 357 should be playing rugby, that might be unreasonable, but, surely we can do better than six percent playing our great game.

Getting those numbers up, both in terms of schools playing regular rugby, and boys and girls playing in these schools, represents a major challenge for Gavin Scott and the Rugby Development Department. The future of the game in Scotland depends on them getting things right and ending the long years of shrinkage.

When I played for Cumnock Academy we had a good fixture list against other State schools: Ardrossan Academy, Ayr Academy, Marr College, Kilmarnock Academy, Irvine Royal Academy, Kilwinning Academy, Dalry High School, Spiers School, without leaving Ayrshire. We travelled up to Glasgow, where we faced: Jordanhill College School, Hyndland Secondary, Shawlands Academy, Queen's Park Secondary, Bellahouston Academy and Albert Road Secondary. We travelled to Dumfries, to face Dumfries Academy and St Joseph's College.

How many of these schools are still playing rugby today I wonder.

I could list a few other state schools in the West who played rugby years ago, but no longer appear to. Let's get rugby back into these schools, as a starting-off point, and hope the keener and better players unearthed, can be fed into the clubs and contribute to the growth of the game.

To me, that's the challenge – then, when we've got the numbers up, maybe we will see the quality rise as well.