DISCLAIMER – I am setting-off here on one of my occasional left-field (no, nothing to do with you Jim) rambles/rants of consciousness, which may go somewhere, or where I might end up shooting-up my own erse-hole to the Land of Shite – you have been warned.
Tim Vine's famous one-liner: “Crime in a multi-storey car park, that's wrong on so-many levels” is also relevant to this week's storm in a pint glass involving our national rugby squad.
On the one hand, rugby players not being allowed a wee swally after a good away win – that's against the whole ethos of the game. On the other, given the restrictions of Covid bubbles etc, surely players leaving the team bubble without permission, are they bloody mad – that's a no-no.
Then there's the manner in which the SRU dealt with the entire matter. The break-out for a swally happened late on Saturday night; there were low-key rumours early in the week: that Finn Russell had “broken curfew” on Saturday night, but, nothing substantial until, on Thursday, the bombshell news that he was benched for Saturday, with Blair Kinghorn starting at ten – suddenly the “Finn was on the bevvy” stories had a wee bit more credence.
However, the shite didn't really hit the fan until Friday afternoon, some 24 hours before the game – cue turmoil. Then, the SRU had to, belatedly go into damage limitation mode. That is always bad news for the Union, they do damage limitation about as well as the Tories do awarding PPI contracts.
The Junta would, I believe, rather we were still in the good old amateur days of the SRU “saying nothing, then, when challenged, denying we had said it.” But, as the song says: “these days are past, and in the past they must remain.” Today's media demand immediate answers to controversial situations, which calls for a media department capable of thinking on their feet and coming-up with immediate and cogent responses. That's a bit hard when your Head of Media is the Homer Simpson of that particular job.
Mind you, The Junta has a good record of making the wrong call in media relations.
The timing of the news of the break-out by “The Edinburgh Six” was also poor. It might still only be a one-day wonder, but, better to have been a one-day wonder on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, rather than on Friday.
Then there are the sanctions, or the sanctions which have been made public. I am old enough to remember “The Copenhagen Five” scandal of September, 1975, which saw Scotland captain Billy Bremner banned for life from the Scotland team, when on the verge of becoming Scottish football's most-capped player, with another four fellow conspirators also punished after breaking curfew for an unauthorised swally.
However, unlike The Edinburgh Six, who apparently returned to base once their escape had been detected, The Copenhagen Five took it a wee bit further, with reports of fisticuffs and swearie words.
Then there was The Cameron House Incident of 2009, which saw another Scotland team captain, Rangers' Barry Ferguson and his club-mate, goalkeeper Allan McGregor banned from representing Scotland, following an all-night bender at the team's hotel.
These incidents are in football, a game which, within the corridors of power, appears to attract an awful lot of Scots whom I like to call: “The Unco Guid” descendants of Holy Willie. Given the game's history of boisterous apres rugby behaviour, I can think of only one Scot who was banished for bad behaviour by the SRU – a player immediately cast-out for the heinous crime of standing on a table and leading a spirited rendition of The Sash while on-tour.
What really grates for those of us in the body of the kirk is the sheer unfairness of it all. OK, maybe Dublin isn't a game for as inexperienced a player as Sione Tuipulotu, so we can maybe overlook his exclusion from the match-day squad. But, to bin Finn, and keep the other four in the starting line-up, that reeks of hypocrisy.
Hoggy is the Captain – he almost demanded he be given the job as a matter of right. He HAS to be held to higher standards. I mentioned Billy Bremner above. The Wee Man survived one or two scrapes – the after-hours antics of him and Jimmy Johnstone in the pre-1974 World Cup sortie to Belgium and Norway, when they took-on the Scottish Football Writers Association drinking team and won, twice, while he may or may not have been involved in the Cruise of the Good Ship Jinky a week or so earlier, comes to mind. But eventually, his failings caught-up with man from the Raploch and he was gone. How much more rope has Hoggy got?
Maybe a blanket dropping would have cleared the air – even if it did lead to a loss in Dublin. There again, some of Scotland's best performances have come when the team had been written-off, you never know with our squads.
Disturbingly, since the story broke I have heard tales of the behaviour of some of the current squad, for instance, how about this message I received:
“When we in Japan at RWC we learned of a faction calling themselves 'The Big Dogs' - you can figure out who they were. This had created a split in the squad as you might imagine, not because they were a leadership team, but because of their arrogance.
"This seems to still be the case with some cronies who are, as you say, not quite pups, tagging along. Where this is dangerous is that it not only begins to alienate players and cause obvious issues with the coaching team, it annoys the fans - other than the totally blinkered.”
If my informant is correct, and I know him to be a man with a good background in the game at a high level and of extreme probity, well we clearly have a problem within the squad which has not been properly managed by the Coach or the wider Murrayfield management team.
Maintaining squad balance and harmony is an inexact science, but, it is one a good coach needs to master. On Lions' tours, for instance, maintaining the harmony (or failing to) between the Test animals and the Dirt Trackers has often been the difference between a good or bad tour. It calls for good management and even-better captaincy. If the captain is part of the problem, you're in trouble; Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Geoffrey Boycott being the prize example..
While we adhere to the: “The Coach as God” managerial style, then we have to back Toony's call on this one, however, I, and a lot of others in the body of the kirk, will be very-disappointed, if the events of this week are not raised by the SRU Council members.
The whole affair has been badly handled, questions remain unanswered and hopefully, once the dust of Dublin has settled they will be. Certainly, the air has to be cleared before we set off on what will be a tough tour to Argentina this summer.
This season's Six Nations Debrief promises to be very-interesting.
There is obviously something badly wrong in the Scotland camp and it’s essential that Dodson, Mallinder and Townsend address whatever is ailing things.
ReplyDeleteOne area of discussion should be - the best player pool for a generation. Really? You highlighted that Townsends win lose % is pretty good relative to his fellow Scottish coaches. But we still lose too many matches.
And is the player pool the best? Possibly. But great coaches make more with what they have. Toonies tenure doesn’t suggest he fits into that frame.