SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH, a few years ago, described mankind as: “The Great Communicator.” Our ability to communicate with others of our species, far better than the other species on earth, was what had made Homo Sapiens the alpha species on the planet.
Can somebody please give the Scottish Rugby Union a heads-up on this. I write that because, I was looking for a piece of information in compiling this blog post, and I thought: “It will be up on the Club Communications section of the SRU website.”
So, off I went there to find the following (I copied and pasted):
Latest communications issued to member clubs:
Due to a change in our system, we currently are unable to host copies of Club Communications on our website.
We issue a new edition of Club Communications on a weekly basis every Wednesday.
If you would like to receive a copy of Club Communications from the following dates, please contact our Communications Manager: caitlin.gould@sru.org.uk
The last Club Communications release available is dated 6 October. I tried to get in to read it, but, to no avail. Any way, I am assuming that date was 6 October, 2021 – but, with Murrayfield, you never know, it could be even longer ago than that. However, if the system broke down, or was abandoned, on 6 October, 2021, that's 29 weeks ago – over six months – a Hell of a long time in which to be telling your most-important stakeholders nothing. TCD could well be creaming himself, at the thought of keeping so-many people in the dark for so-long.
Am I surprised? Naw! The Junta operates on the well-known “Mushroom Management Principle” - keeping us in the dark and occasionally throwing shite over us. In spite of the gallant efforts at bringing clarity and transparency from President Ian Barr and the majority of the Council members.
Fortunately, some of the required information got out, and my thanks to the club official who passed the relevant documentation on to me.
At the 2022 AGM, in August, member clubs will be invited to vote on a revised League format, to be introduced at the start of the 2023-24 season. This will see us go to:
Four “National” Leagues – Premiership and National leagues 1, 2 and 3.
Each of these leagues will have ten clubs.
Below that there will be three Regional Championships, the leagues make-up of which will be determined by the Regional Championship Committees.
Again, in the Regional Championships, there will be ten-team leagues, giving 18 fixtures.
Promotion and relegation will be on the basis of one-up/one-down.
National league Three will see three teams relegated, to be replaced by the three Regional Champions.
Season 2022-23 will be a “transition season.”
This means the bottom seven clubs in National League Three will be relegated at the end of next season, or might it be the bottom nine – since three clubs will need to be promoted? There will be further relegations in National Leagues One and Two, to bring them down from the current 12 teams to ten.
Apologies if I've got this wrong, but, it appears to me, at the end of next season, the positions will be:
Premiership to NL1 – one up, one down.
NL1 to Nl2 – one up from Nl2, three down from NL1 to NL2.
Nl2 to NL3 – one up from NL3, five down from NL2 to NL3
NL3 to Regional Leagues – three up from Regions, seven down.
This should make for an interesting AGM – just how many “turkeys” will vote for Christmas, I wonder.
Democracy must prevail, but, I have to admit – I still believe 40 “National League” clubs is too many, and in my opinion, we certainly don't need four such leagues.
I DESPAIR – I will never knock the players and the coaching staff, who are giving their all for Scotland, but, surely collecting the wooden spoon in the Tik Tok Women's Six Nations is the catalyst for the great minds at Murrayfield wakening up to the fact – the way we are doing Women's Rugby isn't working.
It's time for change and a wee bit of clearer thinking. There is talk of a Women's United Rugby Championship. I wonder, will the SRU make the same mess of that they did in the early, indeed most years, of the Men's equivalent, during the journey from the Scottish-Welsh League to the URC? I am not optimistic on this.
THE FINAL Edinburgh v Glasgow clash of the season, in Round 18 of the URC offers an interesting challenge to the SRU's marketing guys. How hard can they sell the game, scheduled to kick-off at 6.30pm on Saturday, 21 May?
This will be the most-crucial 1872 Cup clash yet, and already it has been switched from the DAM Health Stadium, next door to the National Stadium. But, I wonder, if they really try, how many fans might the SRU be able to attract.
Both clubs are now certain to finish in the top eight in the Urc this season, and have qualified for the knock-out games. However, the winner-takes-it-all nature of this particular game is this: with either Ospreys or Scarlets set to win the Welsh Shield part of the URC, they will knock the losing Scottish side out of next season's Champions Cup, into the Challenge Cup.
While victory would be an obvious asset to the winners, both sides still have an ace up their sleeve in that,
if they can win this season's Challenge Cup, that will qualify them
for the Champions Cup next season. But, that's not something they can rely on.
Either way, this final meeting has all the ingredients of being the hottest of hot tickets. Might there also be a case for persuading the URC to switch the kick-off to 3pm on that particular Saturday, in an effort to get an even-bigger crowd inside the stadium?
FINALLY – Something I forgot to say during yesterday's round-up of the week-end's Super6 games.
I thought referee Graeme Ormiston had a good game in the Boroughmuir v Watsonians game, except – he was a bit too-polite for me. We could hear on the referee's microphone, he was constantly talking to the players, he explained his thinking clearly and well.
However, I thought one or two of the older players were taking the piss somewhat, they were speaking, but not really listening, he should have been a bit more distant and pro-active. Also, he was about four scrums too-late in pinging Watsonians' Shaun Gunn for: “Not pushing straight.”
Master Gunn didn't push straight once in the 60 minutes he was on the park.
Its not seven teams down from Nat 3 next season AA
ReplyDeleteThe three Regional champs will playoff against team 6 in Nat 3 to see who gets the final slot in the new 10 team league
In 24/25 the three regional champs will go up with three dropping out of Nat 3.
1 up 1 down in Prem, Nat 1 & 2 will see some serious stagnation in the leagues. The benefit of 10 teams leagues is 18 matches versus the current 22.
I see Brian Moore is complaining of the lack of competition from the England womens team and its the fault of the Celtic Unions for not investing in their teams. He does have something of a point though the Celtic unions cant magic up players from thin air. England have 25K women players. Scotland under 1000 (I think its nearer 800 but getting accurate figures is difficult). You cant build an competitive international team with under 1000 players no matter how much you spend on them
Finally, on Super 6. Is there any information on crowds? The pictures from the games seem to have very sparse attendance
Thanks for that clarification Clubfan. I thought I had seen something about play-offs, but, yet another example of Murrayfield's lack of clarity.
DeleteThe SRU really needs to be doing more to "sell" rugby. You just wonder what some well-paid Murrayfield apparatchiks are doing to justify their big salaries.
Re S6, I think the crowd at Ayr was half-decent, but, it looked decidedly poor at The Greenyards. Difficult to say about Meggetland.