A Bad Night At The Office

 

PERHAPS I AM growing more-tolerant in my dotage. The critical core of this blog's readership have assured me, it is not a case of age bringing experience, or that I am maybe finally becoming sensible. Whatever the reason, I now have a confession to make – Austin Healey is growing on me.

Might it be that 'The Sprite' is a much-better commentator when he doesn't have to dumb down his comments to fit in with a couple of ex-England forwards as co-commentators? Whatever the reason, the Wee Man was one of the stars of Friday night's broadcast of the Glasgow Warriors v Northampton Saints broadcast.

He made several telling and informative inserts into the coverage, and, just when I was thinking: “Am I the only guy who noticed that?” as Scott Cummings was yellow-carded, up pipes Austin to point-out that rather than Cummings jumping across the set piece, he was left dangling by his lifters, so, it was a terribly-harsh yellow card.

That yellow card was just one of several poor decisions by stand-in French referee Luc Ramos – a late call-up to replace Mathieu Reynal. His poor calls hurt Glasgow more than they did Saints, however, we Scots cannot use a sub-standard referee as a reason for Glasgow losing.

It was more a case of them coming up against a better, smarter team, who played the poor official better. Saints have been criticised for their defence in the Gallagher Premiership, but, there was little wrong with it in this game as they repeatedly cut down promising Glasgow attacks.

I fear Glasgow's main problem at the moment is at half-back. Tom Jordan is coming on by leaps and bounds, but, he is not yet an international-quality ten, indeed, he may never be. That he is not quite top shelf can be covered up when he is paired with a nine who is, such as George Horne, Jamie Dobie or the on-loan to Edinburgh Ali Price; paired with another less than stellar nine like Sean Kennedy, he will toil and the attack will misfire occasionally.

Franco Smith made, I would argue, some selection boobs. Scott Cummings to six didn't work, Sintu Manjezi was more anonymous than a six foot seven guy has any right to be, while I felt Richie Gray went into his shell after his first half lecture from the referee.

OK, it was a very-disappointing result, a really bad night at the office for Warriors and one which dents their hopes of advancing in Europe – about which more later in this post.

I ACTUALLY recorded the Glasgow game for watching later, and took-in the Edinburgh game live. With the TV subscriptions I have, this was the easier and more convenient option.

Any way, once I saw the Edinburgh team selection, I thought: “This is going to be a tough night for them,” and that's what happened. Again, I thought the referee was poor, and Ben Whitehouse's decisions, to my mind, hurt Edinburgh more than they did the French side. Perhaps a case of unconscious bias – the official having decided Clermont were the better side and more-likely to win. When you see Edinburgh pinged for an offence, and in the very next phase Clermont getting away with the same indiscretion, you have to wonder at the referee's competence, or neutrality.

Edinburgh had their moments, but, too few and seldom in dangerous areas, but, in the end, they lacked the big-game experience you need in Europe. Although one or two of the younger Edinburgh players, notably Harry Paterson on the wing, showed up well.

WHICH BRINGS ME to the main point of this post.

Edinburgh and Glasgow are both owned by the Scottish Rugby Union. Their main purpose is to be vehicles which allow the bulk of Scotland's international squad to prepare themselves for international matches by competing at the highest club level, in the BKT United Rugby Championship.

But, and this is typical of the SRU under TCD's management, they've fucked it up big time.

At the moment there are approximately 70 Scottish full or A caps signed to clubs in the three main European Leagues. Fifty-one of these players (73%) are employed by the two SRU-owned clubs.

Of the other 19 players, I accept the Union could not afford the contracts of one of two – Finn Russell and Blair Kinghorn for example. Some of them - Jonny Gray, Marcus Bradbury and Adam Hastings left the two home-based clubs for more-lucrative deals in England.

Some of the others, however, could surely be lured home for the right deal, particularly since the big English clubs are all involved in serious cost-cutting exercises.

Edinburgh have eight NSQ (Not Scottish Qualified) players on their books, while Glasgow have ten. Add the journeymen players (not yet capped but past the Academy) at the clubs: 23 at Edinburgh and 17 at Glasgow and you have a combined squad strength at the two clubs of over 90 players.

Surely the SRU could entice at least 10 of the 19 Exiles back, with the right deal in terms of how they would be looked after. This would give them a combined squad of 100 home-based players.

Put the top 30 such players on a central SRU contract, which means they would primarily be Scotland players. However, they would need club games at either Edinburgh or Glasgow, but these appearances should be limited.

So, the SRU and the clubs would need to decide which games really mattered – the Big Games – European matches, Leinster, Munster, the annual trip to South Africa. Have the centrally-contracted players in the squads for these games, with the bulk of the playing spaces in the “lesser games” being filled by the journeymen and the other capped players.

That way, most of our big players are kept fresh for the important games, while the others get a chance to develop and push for promotion to the centrally-funded squad. It seems to work for the Irish, why not for us?