THOSE BRAVE pioneers of sport who started the Scottish Junior Football Association were way ahead of the game when, back in the reign of Queen Victoria, they initiated the proud tradition of “The Protest.”
This meant, a team, even one who got their erses handed to them on a plate, wasn't out of the Junior Cup until all the available legal routes to staying-in had been examined and over-ruled.
I fear, after all the pish I have had to wade through since South Africa knocked France out of the Rugby World Cup, there might be pressure being applied to allow something like the old SJFA protests protocol being applied in Rugby Union.
Mind you, some of the stuff I have read about this game has convinced me – the Artificial Intelligence which has been used to “prove” that biased officiating allowed the defending Champions to oust the Hosts is definitely no match for the Genuine Stupidity of some of the claimants, and their claims.
To maintain the link to the Juniors, the late Jock Stein, who began his career in that grade of football left a few memorable quotes – one of which is very apt in the case of this particular World Cup game. The quote is: “Don't do anything which will let the referee hurt you.”
Maybe if the French had heeded Big Jock's advice, a lot of the white noise around the game might have been avoided. There again, maybe had Tomas Ramos been a bit faster in kicking, Cheslin Kolbe would have failed to charge down his effort and, instead of being a one-point win for South Africa, it would have been a one-point win for France; in which case the bleating would have been in an Afrikaans rather than a French accent.
FOR TOO MANY “fans” of rugby Union, the default setting for the World Cup has been: “The referee was pish and was biased against one side.” I have to say, not many of these serial referee reviewers were Scottish. After over a century of “honest mistakes” which benefited a couple of Glasgow-based clubs, every Scottish sports fan can spot a bent referee at half a mile distance.
Looking in on Facebook after the Argentina v New Zealand game, I saw a number of posts slating Referee Angus Gardner. Now, on the basis that nobody is perfect, I could not give the Australian a perfect 10/10; however, he was as near perfect as made no difference, he worked well with both captains and with his fellow officials. For me, there were no issues with the officials.
My view differs greatly from that of The Guardian's Robert Kitson and Andy Bull. Both hacks were decidedly unimpressed by Gardner's performance. In fact, the bold Robert appeared to be sampling his inner Stephen Jones, implying the referee had an All Blacks' shirt on under his WRC uniform – pathetic.
One wonders what they will come up with should England lose to South Africa.
The All Blacks were at their best in this game, never allowing their opponents to get into their stride and close to them; it was a ruthless, relentless performance. Some of the off-loading and support running from the forwards in particular demonstrated just how far we in Scotland still have to go to be at the top table.
When I was a boy, most Scottish forwards lacked basic skills. Thankfully we have come a long way, but, when you see how comfortable even the All Black “donkeys” in the front five are at the basics of catching and passing, we have a long way still to go.
When it comes to the hard part of Rugby Union - “piano playing” - our “piano shifters” still tend to be in the Eric Morecambe category: “playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order,” while the men in black are a wee bit more Elton John or Jools Holland – able to boogie-woogie with pace and panache.
I WAS faced with a serious choice on Friday night, given that the Rugby World Cup semi-final overlapped with the live FOSROC Super Series clash between Ayrshire Bulls and Boroughmuir Bears, at Millbrae. In the end I decided to watch the Millbrae match and record events in Paris.
Afterwards I was more than ever convinced, the SRU really need to get Pat McArthur a full time coaching gig; here is one native coach who has mastered the difficult act of getting his team to win ugly, regularly.
I have felt all campaign, one of these days – and not just against the whipping boys of The Futures XV, the Bulls are going to cut loose and give a decent side a real doing. At the moment, however, they are doing a fair impression of a present-day Rangers side, playing rugby.
The talent is there, but, the overall performance comes nowhere close to the sum of their parts. The half-back link is weak, McArthur must be hoping that young Richie Simpson can be restored to full health and fitness, to get things moving again and, as at the moment, when Bobby Beattie is missing, their cutting edge is seriously blunted.
I felt they ought to have beaten the Bears more-comfortably than they did, but, that said, I had to admire the way the visitors, given a great lead by Tristan Andrews and Kaleem Baretto, kept coming back at them.
Perhaps the most-impressive man on the pitch, however, was referee David Sutherland, who gave another commanding performance. I really like the way he inter-acts with the players; for instance: telling Blair Macpherson: “I cannot award you a try, you clearly knocked-on there,” that's decisive refereeing.
FINALLY, The BKT United Rugby Championship resumes this weekend, with Edinburgh first out of the blocks, with a wee road trip to sunny Newport, to face The Dragons. Many years ago, I was called there for a job interview and in the short taxi ride between the station and the local newspaper office, I realised, if I had to live there, I really didn't want the job – to paraphrase WC Fields: “I'd rather be in Cowdenbeath.” (other impoverished and run-down former mining localities are available.)
The capital crew will blood six new boys this afternoon, I will be watching the match on Viaplay Sports, hoping to see the start of a two-pronged attack on the new eight top European slots up for grabs in the URC this season.
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