Friday NIght Choices

WELL – that was a hectic weekend, with crucial games on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. It might have signalled the end of season 2022-23 in Scotland, however, the campaign definitely went out with a bang.

Friday night found me again multi-tasking, thanks to the timing clash between the Toulon v Glasgow Warriors European Challenge Cup Final and the crucial first v second, Ayrshire Bulls v Watsonians FOSROC Super6 Sprint clash. To be honest, Warriors were so off the pace, I virtually gave up when both games were on simultaneously, finding the S6 game more-enthralling.

Of course, that rush of shite to the brain by 'Sonians' Bobby Bratton was the key moment, Bulls were never going to lose with a one-man advantage, but, had it remained 15 v 15, it could have been interesting. Particularly when Bobby Beattie is in their XV, Bulls are the class of the field, but, in the Sprint Series, they have not played as well as they can, making too-many unforced errors and repeatedly being forced to “win ugly.”

One of the key foundations of Super Rugby is supposed to be that it be a tier in which players who could transition into full-time professional rugby show their potential. Bulls do have perhaps more players who meet this requirement than any of the other franchises and on Friday night, the likes of Jamie Shedden, Kerr Yule, Ben Afshar, Rory Jackson and Archie Smeaton all showed up well and may be worth a punt further up the food chain.

Of course, the problem is, to reap the full benefit of S6, the SRU really needs to go to a minimum of three full-time teams – and somebody should tell the Performance Department: “No more recruitment of non-Scots” to the full-time teams.

I will be saying more about how I feel S6 should move forward, after this week-end's final games.

As to Glasgow; yes, it was a bad night at the office – but, I really feel, we need to be putting a lot more work into our forwards. Scottish packs, in the current era, simply lack the power of other units and until we get better forwards coaches, and smarter and harder work from our player, then, to my mind, we will continue to fail to provide our excellent backs with the front-foot ball and the platform they need to flourish at the sharp end of the game.

I watched the Saturday afternoon replay of the Toulon game, on BT Sport. Warriors had chances, but, on the night, they lacked the necessary cutting edge.

That second showing was a good warm-up for the big game: La Rochelle v Leinster; which was a terrific game, which might have been better still had it been competently refereed.

I am old enough to remember a Marty Feldman sketch from over half a century ago, in which he played an English football commentator, growing increasingly frantic as be laid into a Swiss referee, in his view helping Uruguay beat England.

The fictional referee in the skit was supposedly based on Gottfried Dienst, the Swiss official who presided over the 1966 World Cup Final. Watching Jaco Peyper on Saturday, I was reminded of Herr Dienst and that fictional official from the Feldman sketch. Here again was a referee promoted above his abilities, giving a below-par performance in a big match and nearly spoiling it.

Jaco is a classic sufferer from Small Man Syndrome, he appeared to be doing his best to help Leinster win, the way he repeatedly let them away with murder, however, in the end, justice was done when La Rochelle came from behind to triumph.

I know, I know, criticism of referees is too-easy these days. Yes, I accept, the Laws of the Game URGENTLY require overhaul, but, when you have referees with a long history of incompetence – and that certainly applies to the three who were on-duty on Saturday, then it wouldn't matter what was done to the Laws, you would still get problems.

HOW TYPICALLY Scottish, that Caledonian Reds should emerge victorious in the first playing of the revived Inter-District Championship. The South were even-hotter favourites than Leinster, to win Sunday's Braidholm show-down, since the men from north of the Forth didn't have La Rochelle's track record.

I am delighted for everyone behind their success. We sophisticates from the central belt certainly tend to under-estimate the men of Caley, so well done to them for their victory.

Great too, to see Glasgow and The West thumping Edinburgh. I wasn't really surprised at this, however. It might well be that too-many of the very-good young players coming out of places such as Merchiston, Watson's, Fettes and The Academy are lost to Edinburgh clubs, because they go off to universities in England, but, clearly, the Edinburgh clubs are not holding onto young talent – while the absolute nonsense of having three Super6 franchises in the city is also diluting the talent pool in Auld Reekie.

After Sunday, th big question is – where do we go from here? It will be interesting to see what the great brains within The Murrayfield Junta come up with.